The World Health Organization has set healthy level of Air Quality Index at 25 micrograms, while Beijing considers a 300 reading as "Bad" and 500 as "Hazardous." Last weekend, however, it breached 700!
"I'm getting itchy," complained my daughter Michelle, 22, visiting us from New York. "I could feel it at the back of my throat."
Longtime expatriate residents in the Chinese capital jokingly call it the "Beijing tickle," a nagging cough that takes a long time to shrug off.
