Zhengzhou and Yangzhou

[CharlesLi]

Anyone have any experience with any of these cities?

In the context of livability, pollution, foreigner presence etc . . .

Thanks

[abcdefg]

Anyone have any experience with any of these cities?

I visited Zhengzhou 郑州 in Henan 河南 a couple weeks ago for 3 days. If that's the place you are referring to, it was huge and crowded with bad air. Discovered nothing in that short time to make me ever want to go back. It is a major transportation hub, however, because of its Central China location, so it's relatively easy to get to other places from there. That might be a plus.

I used Zhengzhou and Luoyang mainly as a base for visits to the Song Mountains, Shaolin Monastery, the Longmen Grottoes and a couple other places.

Admittedly a three day sampling of such a big (8 million) city is not much, and the place might have hidden charms which other people can tell you about.

Have not been to Yangzhou.

[CharlesLi]

Ya that's exactly the place I was interested in.

it was huge and crowded with bad air

I remember reading somewhere that it was one of the most polluted cities in China. Was this true for you in your experience?

Would it be worse than the 3 Major cities i.e. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou

[abcdefg]

I remember reading somewhere that it was one of the most polluted cities in China. Was this true for you in your experience?

I coughed and my eyes burned while there. But that's real subjective and I was only there a short time. Have a look here for a more scientific asessment of air quality: http://www.cnemc.cn/

Would it be worse than the 3 Major cities i.e. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou

I'm not really qualified to comment on that, but from what I've read, Beijing and Shanghai are worse. Up to date information is difficult to ferret out.

[CharlesLi]

Thanks for the info and the link:

Have a look here for a more scientific asessment of air quality: http://www.cnemc.cn/

only problem is there's no English lol

[anonymoose]

I went to Zhengzhou a couple of years ago, although I only stayed for less than 48 hours. As far as I recall, the pollution was fairly typical for a Chinese city of that size (which could be viewed as terrible or not too bad, depending on what your standard is). I have to agree with abcdefg, though, that there is very little of interest in Zhengzhou.

I have not been to Yangzhou, but it looks somewhat more attractive than Zhengzhou, simply by judging from pictures on the net (which is obviously not a very comprehensive comparison).

Have a look here for a more scientific asessment of air quality: http://www.cnemc.cn/

The question is, how trustworthy is the information on that site?

[abcdefg]

only problem is there's no English lol

Yes, I also find the website somewhat difficult to use except for just reading day by day figures. I wish I knew someplace to find monthly averages over the last year or two because one cannot draw conclusions from only one day's figures. Maybe another forum member knows a better source of such information and will post it for us.

You might find this map useful in getting an idea of how the major cities compare with eachother, though today most of them look so good it's difficult to believe. Mouse over the city markers for the city name and the numerical rating.

http://www.cnemc.cn/citystatus/airMap.jsp

[CharlesLi]

Alright

According to the map right now:

Zhengzhou - 84

Yangzhou - 165

Beijing - 66

Linfen which is notorious for smog due to the proliferation of coal-burning power plants nearby is 57

I'm not sure if these numbers have anything to do with pollution as they're all over the place

[abcdefg]

I'm not sure if these numbers have anything to do with pollution as they're all over the place

I agree these figures are puzzling. But they are given as representing 空气质量日报查询, and that does mean air quality. See the scrolling table all the way to the left. Those are the numbers that are fed into the map. Perhaps the odd results have to do with the heavy rains that are now falling in some of those areas. It might affect the meaningfulness of the air samples. I don't really know how the data is collected.

That's why I earlier said I wished monthly averages were available instead of just these daily reports. I keep hoping that someone else who knows of a better data source will join the discussion. I'd be glad to discover it myself.