Thursday, January 23, 2014

Virtual Sunrise Revisited

Strange things happen in China. All the time. This is what the China hand whose views I respect the most (and whom I also happen to live with) tells me all the time. So, I didn't find it too hard to believe that residents of Beijing were getting their fill of sunrise each morning--in spite of the perpetual smog--via large video screens. The photo accompanying the story in the Daily Mail seemed to confirm the tale.

I should have paid more attention to the logo in the lower right corner of the video screen, a logo that seemed to indicate that the video was, in fact, an advertisement for tourism in Shandong Province. Mea culpa.

On the other hand, U.S. State Department air quality monitoring in Beijing currently indicates that the air quality in Beijing has been in the "Hazardous" range ("Everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion.") for the past twenty-four hours. Of course, that's not news. Virtual sunrises would be news.

Perhaps the Shandong Province tourism video would be most effective in luring Beijing-ren to the coast if it showed nothing but sunrises.