Kind of a big deal

So... I've been thinking a lot about pollution lately. It's easy to do in Shenyang.
There's so much light pollution that my 3-year-old, Penny, can easily count all the stars in the sky.  And she can't count past 7. The air is so thick we sometimes can't see the buildings a block away from us. One of Kevin's colleagues was coming back from Beijing last month, but the plane couldn't see the airport to land and had to turn back to Beijing. The water usually comes out yellowish, which is a visual reminder of what is in it, even when it runs clear.
We've adapted. We watch TV instead of the night sky. When the air pollution is off the charts, we keep Penny home from school, and the three of us girls hunker down with the air filters. Kevin takes the shuttle to work instead of walking, because strangely enough, it's healthier NOT to exercise. The bath water is yucky so often that I keep food coloring in the kids' bathtub. If the water's going to be a color, it might as well be blue or green.
But we still breathe the air. We still ingest some of the water. We eat vegetables grown outside in the nastiness, and the meat we eat was raised eating the acid-rain-fed grass. And it takes its toll.
It's one thing if it's just Kevin and me. We chose to come, and we're not growing or developing like our kids. It's sad to hear Penny cough and clear her throat before she sings. And it's worrisome to hear her wheeze after running around in the hallway with her friends. Naomi drinks the bathwater because she thinks it's cute for me to tell her, "No."
Kevin attended a meeting at work about the air quality and the short-term fixes. The Embassy in Beijing is actually bringing in experts from America to see how effective air filters really are, or if they're just to make us feel better about the pollution.
Now, China has always been polluted, and of course we knew it would be when we came. And last winter we left for a couple of the worst months (January and February), which helped a lot. But this year, we didn't leave. Kevin's job ends in April, and it sounded strange at the time to plan a big vacation two months before leaving. But pollution levels this winter were off the charts, worse than ever before. To compare, here is an article from 2007 about the terrible air in the Salt Lake Valley. It was the worst in the nation, and they were warning people to stay inside and reduce their driving. The air quality monitors were reading 47 and 56 in Salt Lake City and Logan. In January, we had a day that almost hit 800. And it was around 400 regularly. It's 216 as I'm writing this. (You can check it right here.) Kevin and I took the girls out on the deck a couple days ago to make a snowman and play in the (brown) snow. We were out for an hour, and my throat was all scratchy and my lungs hurt afterwards.
So after the air quality meeting, Kevin and I talked about it. Long story short, we decided that I'll take Penny and Naomi back to the US as soon we can make arrangements. Kevin will have to stay another month and a half, but we feel like this is the best course of action for our family right now, especially with Penny's wheezing. We have an inhaler for her, and we've seen the doctor about it a few times. They're hesitant to call it asthma because she is so young, and there is a possibility she'll grow out of it. And I think that by getting her to a better climate, we'll be doing the best we can for her. My parents live in New Mexico, which currently has an air quality reading of 3.
And before anyone decides that they could never, ever go to China with its disgusting air, I'd just recommend planning your R&R vacations during the worst times of year. That would be the winter. Thailand is lovely that time of year. We should have gone.

Edit: I just want to add that Shenyang is actually quite lovely all spring, summer, and fall. It's warm, there is wind and weather, and you don't get the same kind of dense smog just sitting and staying. But the winter is rough, and after staying here for the whole thing, we're feeling it.
It feels a little dumb to leave right as the air is clearing up for the spring, but so it goes. It is the best decision for our family right now.