Korean Job Discussion Forums

[travelingfool]

I usually run about 30 miles a week. I just looked at the air quality website and it said my area was in the unhealthy range.

How do you avid runners deal with this? I don't have asthma and don't want to develop it from breathing in all kinds of junk. Do those masks actually help? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[MrRogers]

I don't have any scientific answers, but I can personally say a mask seemed to help a little.

I have never used one before (and I have had asthma my whole life) and I have lived in Shanghai and in Southeast Asia, besides the east coast of the U.S.

In Shanghai I saw many people on the street with masks, though they didn't look very tight or state-of-the-art. I have been here in SK since June and lately the pollution seems worse to me than anywhere I have been. I am in the rural south in a town among the mountains (an area they like to say is the best country place to be - haha).

The last couple of weeks, on and off, the air has been thick with pollution from China and also the burning of fields. (as someone said on another thread, different atmospheric inversions? plus the various pollutions contribute to the stuff just hanging in the mountains, trapped)

It was so bad last week that I broke down and bought one at a pharmacy - it is supposed to have a high filtering rating - it seemed to help - I figure better than nothing.

If people here are used to pollution, I am wondering if lately it seems worse to them than last year. After the snowstorm on Chinese New Year last February, Chinese officials pushed for more coal production. Here is an article from last February:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/world/asia/09china.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=China%20and%20coal&st=cse&oref=slogin

[Cheonmunka]

I have been here 10 years and I thought this past August was very clear and quite unusual. The sky was clear over Seoul; one could see the blueness of the sky. Just two days after the Olympics finished the sky and air became murky and gray again.

[CeleryMan]

Learn to embrace treadmills

[crusher_of_heads]

[mzeno]

What's a little black lung in exchange for the adventure of a lifetime? I just got off the plane from Los Angeles a few weeks ago and it feels like going from the frying pan into the fire in terms of air pollution. Where I live in Busan seems OK , but it strangely seems to get worse as I ride north 45 minutes out of the city to my school in Yangsan. I was expecting it would be the other way around, with better air outside the big city, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The best medicine that I know of for yellow dust in the lungs is fresh, raw vegetable juice, particularly the greens:spinach,kale, celery, lettuce, wheatgrass. I have not seen wheatgrass, but everything else seems available at E-mart. They also sell two types of juicers as well. The one that looks like a meat grinder is better for juicing the greens. Make sure to mix in some carrots so you won't throw up from the taste, and start out slow, as the stuff is quite intense. It's a lot of work, until you get the hang of it, but it does a body good!

[bogey666]

[MrRogers]

try a mask

[Papa Smurf]

when i first arrived in seoul i would run on the tracks by my apartment. maybe it was just coincidence, but my chest felt like shit. after 3 months i joined a gym because i wanted to do heavy weights too. so i only use treadmills now. not had any problems since.

[VanIslander]

there is PLENTY of research showing the dangers of exercising outside in cities with high pollution

google is your friend

[Bigfeet]

Treadmills aren't bad if you watch TV or listen to PMPs.