Man swimming in Beijing's Houhai lake
The crisp and crystal clear feel of autumn in Beijing has for years been overshadowed by the capital’s notorious smog. But the Olympic clean up drive and traffic restrictions that saw half of the cars off the roads for two months have brought back to people the memories of what their city was once serenaded for.
For weeks now Beijingers have woken up to the sight of infinite blue skies. And they have shuddered at the thought that things would go back to “normal” – the grey haze enveloping the city, once the Paralympic games guests have left too.
The allure of Beijing blue skies has been such that even acerbic environmental critics like Wang Youngchen – a prominent radio host, have been prompted to wax Olympic Beijing’s lyrics. “I cannot remember the last time that I was able to describe Beijing skies as azure,” she wrote in a column published in the Beijing News. Then she went on describing the newly found joys of strolling along Beijing’s cleaned up rivers and admiring their “green wavelets”.
Swimmers have re-appeared in the capital’s former imperial lakes. And new anticipation – the sheer joy of looking up at vast stretches of blue every day, has been added to life here.
The city fathers may have had to use top-down approach and enforce the traffic restrictions for the Olympics but a recent survey of Beijing residents found that 68 percent supported the measures becoming permanent.
