Running while smoking coal: dilemmas

Only one more week till the marathon and I’m really, really concerned about getting sick, which is a much more likely proposition here than at home. When in graduate school, I spent two months solo backpacking around China and lost nearly a week to illness, rarely leaving my dorm room bed in Chengdu’s Traffic Hotel. The generally close proximity of 20+ million other human beings is a relentless condition. For instance, sometimes the subway platforms look like a mosh pit, albeit a relatively well-organized one (Figure 1). Street food is a constant temptation and today I think I’ve consumed my last bit of it until after the race (Figure 2). Restaurants also sometimes feature questionable hygienic practices (Figure 3).

What to do? Promoting good pre-marathon health seems to be a series of dilemmas. Drink more beer (kills germs), or drink less beer (reduces resistance)? Eat nothing but packaged food (less sketchy cooking methods), or eat no packaged food whatsoever (due to lack enforcement of regulations here, that is the stuff that might really kill you)? Another option is to adopt a new approach to fashion, one that combines the best looks of the Unabomber, a member of Hezbollah, and a Japanese teenager (Figure 4). Face masks are increasingly common here—they combine health, environmental, style, and political statements all in one, kind of like Chinese rocker Cui Jian’s song “A Piece of Red Cloth” but for the mouth instead of the eyes. In 2008, some members of the United States Olympic team caused a stir by wearing face masks, and had to apologize for causing the Chinese to “lose face,” but these days you can get face masks with all kinds of adorable adornments, such as one that says “Because I have nothing to say, I’m wearing a face mask.”

Figure 1: Beijing rush hour subway platform.