It's officially hwangsa season. Every spring in the months of March-May, Korea gets hit with yellow dust storms, or hwangsa storms. The yellow dust originates in the deserts of Mongolia, Northern China, and Kazakhstan and is carried eastward by prevailing winds. With the sand, comes all sorts of pollutants. According to my best friend next to Google,
Wikipedia states that, sulphur (an acid rain component), soot, ash, carbon monoxide, and other toxic pollutants including heavy metals (such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, lead, zinc, copper) and other carcinogens, often accompany the dust storms, as well as viruses, bacteria, fungi, pesticides, antibiotics, asbestos, herbicides, plastic ingredients, combustion products as well as hormone mimicking phthalates. Now, that sounds healthy.
The Korea Environment Institute claims that the dust kills up to 165 South Koreans a year (mostly the elderly or people with respiratory ailments) and makes as many as 1.8 million ill. I'm a living testament. I made the extremely stupid mistake of running the other night after a polluted day and now I have a terrible cough that's moved into my chest. Last night I woke up with a raging fever that carried over into the day and made me completely miserable. I don't even remember teaching yesterday. It was all a big hazy blur.
I've been so sickly since I've been in Korea. With the pollution combined with my nose picking, slobbering kindies, my immune system doesn't stand a chance. I began thinking about the last few times I've developed a cough or cold and realized that I always got sick after my nights of running. I need to be more cautious about exercising outside, especially during the next few months. I think it might be time to break down and buy a gym membership. Sigh.
