This evening the outside temperature is 5C. Oh sorry! I could not write that. According to the government here that’s a state secret: foreigners are not allowed to watch the weather and surely not to forecast it, according to new regulations. A weather observation station set up near the yachting venue in Qingdao was cited as an illegal act.
This might explain why I never succeed to understand the weather forecast. According to the various sources I read – Yahoo weather, SCMP forecast, Chinese newspapers it is going to rain and to be sunny with a clear sky all at the same time. Not that we need it, in Beijing it is simple: it hardly ever rains or snows, the question is simply – is there wind? Then we can guess how bad the pollution could be and which tint of blue we can see in the sky above: gray, a grayish blue or some other kind of blue. This very evening I tried to understand if there were some snow clouds or if it was pollution. I gave it up. Anyway, I wouldn’t tell you. It’s a state secret.