One good thing about the appalling smog in BJ recently.
There has been smog like this in other cities for years, and nothing was done. Now it has hit the capital, there is a good chance of new environmental legislations, and better enforcement. This will filter down to practices in other cities too. All will benefit.

We can but hope.

This happened after the LA smogs of the 1970s. This movement for change on vehicle pollution filtered down to other cities and states, and even other countries.

I have noticed a cultural trend. Buy shoes, wear them till they fall apart, no maintenance required.

You can see rich businessmen in $5000 suits, with shoes that are falling apart.

Lexol is available on Taobao.com. I have recently found out that everything I need, pretty much, if for sale here. Thanks to input from guys on this website.

If you want a leather conditioner, you can get it from car accessory shops everywhere.

At the time of looking at the data (100.06 hrs 2/22/13) BJ is 32, KMG is 149.
This does not follow that the air in BJ is better than that in KMG this morning.

It is likely that either there are too few testing stations, the data is not being averaged, or sample data is being filtered.
From what I can see the numbers are not being used correctly either. The AQI is usually derived from taking the raw data for a range of pollutants, weighting them, combining them, and then producing a standard deviation (bell curve) and taking the AQI reading from the curve.

What we appear to be seeing from the website is the raw data and picking only the PM2.5 reading.
As the Chinese system only goes up to 300 and there are regulary readings in excess of double this number, there is obviosly a flaw in the system.

We have all seen where an idea or technology has been cut and pasted from the west and applied in China without understanding the rational. In EU and US the locations of sites for environmental testing are carefully chosen to give a representative average for an area. Spot sample data is only used to identify 'hotspots' for potential management/mitigation action.

As the Chinese system only goes up to 300 and there are regulary readings in excess of double this number, there is obviosly a flaw in the system.
If a country were trying to save face, it would have a more liberal scale. Therefore I am assuming that the sampling and/or monitoring and/or calculations are all cocked up.

The AQI for the US is not directly comparable with that for Mainland China. The Chinese scale only goes up to 300, the US to 500.

Having said all that, I am not saying that the air in KMG is good.

See post for Aug 30 2011 here. gochengdoo.com/en/forums/thread/2442/www.chinesecorner.cn
May still be in existence.
But I imagine there will be a Sony Authorized repair place. Just ask in an approved Sony sales outlet, maybe a dept store.

I also agree that pronunciation matters but is not that important.

A familiarity with the language will give the child a head start in school, and give them condidence.

Issues of pronunciation and grammar can/will be corrected by teachers later. This is also true for native speakers. Hence we have sayings like, 'do not write in the same way that you speak', or as one Indian teacher said to her students, 'Speak the Queen's English and not the President's English'. We all learn very quickly the different standards of any language that fit different environs. The language of the school yard is not the language for the classroom. Or where I came from, the language of the butcher's shop was not the language for Church, and vice versa.