The Yellow Sand Storms

I greeted my students the other day by commenting on the beautiful spring weather we were having. “No teach-a. Spring. Very bad. Very, very bad. Look.” They went to the whiteboard and drew a map of China, Korea and Japan. Then a tornado of dust coming from China, over Korea, to Japan. “Very bad. No breathe.” I’ve had emails from people warning me about the dust and pollen here, so I did believe them. But, these girls have a tendency to exaggerate. They are the same girls who told me Korean girls don’t get their ears pierced because if you pierce your ear a nerve ending (white thread) might be exposed. If you pull the white thread it leads straight to your brain and basically unravels your brain. Almost all of my female students believe this. So I tend to take anything they tell me with a grain of salt.

I should have listened to them about the sand storms. As I left so-yae today I noticed it was extremely hazy. I had walked maybe, oh, 30 feet, when I realized I was having a hard time breathing. My throat was extremely dry. I tried to swallow. My lips were parched. The inside of my mouth felt like dry cotton. My eyes were stinging. It suddenly clicked. This was what they were talking about. This was a yellow sand storm. Oh, my god. It is miserable.

Maybe I should think twice about getting that second piercing…