Dalian is a clean and beautiful city.

For China. When it's windy. But how clean a city is it? Starting last summer an increasing number of locals flying in complained of haze over the Bohai Sea and the district near the airport. Discernible haze: over the narrow sea corridor separating Dalian from Yantai a yellow-brown haze could often be seen, not dissimilar to large metropolises in other parts of the world, except with an urban population of just 3 million, Dalian is not the size of an international metropolis.

Dalian is a clean city, for China. It's also quite an attractive city, with mountains, beaches, and heavy industry either port-side away from downtown, or moving further North as once industrial zones are converted to higher-yielding residential and commercial use. Measuring anything internationally over an extended period of time is difficult. Wikipedia has some statistics which they take from a World Bank report: Dalian has an average 50 micrograms of Particle Matter per square meter, compared to Beijing at 89, Shanghai at 73 and nearby Shenyang at 101. For International comparison, New York has 21, London 21, Rome 29, Delhi 150, Paris 11 and Auckland 14. Dalian is a clean city for China, or perhaps more correctly, for a developing country.

The problem with such statistics is they're out of date, coming from 2004. The Ministry of Environmental Protection have a measure updated daily. Dalian (as of the time of writing) has a level of 50-70 PM, slightly higher than in 2004. Today's not better than 2004. Randomly sampling the MEP's website shows Janyary 1st 2009 at 51-71, November 1st 51-71, August 1st 30-50, June 1st 76-96, March 1st 80-100. 2008 doesn't seem to have been a particularly good year for Dalian, opposed to other cities in China hosting events and having to make Olympic efforts to clean up their act.

This pollution is materialising itself, in the sky and under our feet. An evening stroll is fast becoming a dangerous past time. A mild winter and general lack of typically strong winds causes condensation, dirty slippery condensation, to form and partially crystallise on the roads.

The next time crossing Yan'an Lu perhaps bear in mind - Dalian's not the clean city it once was, even for China. Let's hope the wind picks up and blows it away, then we can all pretend Dalian is a clean city once again.

Image: "Pollution and power lines in northern China" http://flickr.com/photos/adamcohn/1085144985/ Creative Commons.