The Coming of Spring
1.4.07
Pictures
1. A magnolia tree in almost full bloom. Look at the colour of the sky and notice the yellow hinge, the haze, this my friends, is a prime example of yellow dust.
2. Coming out of a tunnel in the foothills of the mountians I miracously found the road free of cars and was able to snap this picture of some sort of yellow flowers that lined the road.
3. The start of the cherry blossom bloom
4-5. Early spring flowers
The first thing that I do every morning, as most of us do, is sit up and fling open the curtains to check the weather. I, like almost every other human being, want to know if the day is cloudy or sunny, and from this information I plan my activities for the day.
Today I followed my usual routine, a little later than usual, it was Sunday after all, and looked out of my window to a strange sight.
It seemed to me that an eerie sort of twilight had descended on the little town of Sokcho. Everywhere I looked was this pale, sickly, mustard yellow; there was no sun, no cloud, just this ugly haze covering the city. Odd really considering that there is almost no heavy industry here in town to cause such a massive level of pollution on this scale.
When I looked down from my sixth floor window to the parking lot below I saw that this strange yellow hue did not affect just the air. The cars, lined up in their semi-neat rows, were covered with a fine yellow dust. When I got down to the parking area and ran my hands over them they came away tinged with a pale, gritty, yellow, substance, almost like……..sand!
There kids, is the answer, the yellow grit, the haze in the sky, the lack of sun, and the low clouds, well, they were all the gift of China to Korea, yellow dust.
Yellow dust comes to us from the great, open, sandy expanses of the far western edge of China, the Gobi desert. After the cold of the winter leaves the soil, winds whip the yellow dust into a frenzy and push it ever eastward. Along the way, luckily for us in Korea, it sweeps over the massive mega cities that line the eastern edge of China, and picks up all sorts of heavy metals and pollutants from the mass industrialization programs that are taking place along the rivers and seas of the great country of China.
As the wind blows eastward, towards Korea, it sweeps across the Yellow Sea, carrying all of the topsoil, heavy metals, and manufacturing by-products that it has picked up along the way. By the time it reaches the western shore of the Korean peninsula the dust has became laden with all the great things that China is giving to the rest of Asia.
The first you hear of it is on T.V. as the warnings and dangers of the yellow dust storm are broadcast for everyone to hear, then the masks come out and everyone stays indoors to weather the storm, everyone, that is but me, who thought it was a fine time to head out and shoot some pictures of spring flowers.
