Japan has received much from China over the millennia, including its early laws and culture, beautiful architecture (the city of Kyoto was built as a scale replica of Chang’an, the old capital of the Tang dynasty), and of course the kanji writing system still in use today. Unfortunately another gift China regularly bestows on Japan is…terrible air quality. While we’ve long had a problem with 黄砂 kosa, the gritty dust known as yellow sand or Asian dust that blows over from Mongolia and makes our cars dirty, lately Japanese cities have been plagued by a “desolation of smog” floating over from Chinese cities. In China the problem is so bad it’s starting to affect crop growth in the same way as nuclear winter, and there are concerns about what the future holds. Tokyo used to be famous for its bad air quality, but former governor Shintaro Ishihara improved the problem greatly by banning all older “dirty diesel” trucks from driving in Tokyo and enacting subsidies to help businesses update older vehicles to cleaner engines. Hopefully some smart policies coupled with technology can improve the situation soon.
Living next to China has its drawbacks.
