"In a country with a history of associating its leadership with the power to control the weather, it’s the government that will be called upon to make it rain."
The lack of rain is turning the land to dust, adding to the pollution and smog that hangs over the city and obscures the horizon. The winds exacerbate the situation, tearing up the ground and hurling it at the buildings. Our windows have a fine layer of earth smashed onto them, and in the summer when we had the windows fully open you could see the build-up from just a day on our black sofa. Don't worry Gran, it's clean now, but apparently the worst is yet to come - dust from the Gobi Desert (Mongolia) shoudl eb arriving in early summer...
Fortunately, China has an 'Weather Modification Office', a Government department tasked with changing the weather. How cool is that?! Officials hand out chemical rocket-launchers to volunteers who fire them at the sky in the hope of making small clouds heavy enough to rain. Apparently it works, and is the only reason there was no rain for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
Can you imagine if we expected our politicians to change the weather? They barely seem to be able to keep the country moving with the weather we've got now, let alone change it. I like, however, the idea that in China the Government are expected to sort this kind of thing out (as if it's part-and-parcel of the country's overall economic development); it ties in with a lot of what of seen and experienced here so far. Although to be fair, the Weather Modification Office hasn't exactly mastered the art of cloud-seeding just yet.
I'm not sure what the lack of rain will mean for next semester - farming families may need fewer hands around and there may be more students in class after the break. Alternatively, some of the students might have to drop out and help support their parents by getting a job - the fees here are especially expensive if the family has a reduced income through lower crop yields.
One thing's for sure: it's got to rain some time...
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