Day 255: Phlegm Factor

Reason #47 why fall is a way-cool season: less phlegm!

Air pollution in Korea ranges from just plain bad to horrific. In the summer months especially the air is a choking mix of smog, industrial smoke, and toxic car fumes. The high humidity amplifies all of this during the summer season and Korea becomes trapped under stagnant hot wet air masses that just SIT over the peninsula trapping all of the pollution and preventing any air circulation. The result of having to breathe all of this in day in, day out is a constant build up of phlegm in your throat, and it's pretty damn disgusting.

And we're not just talking the occasional need to hork up a big fat juicy loogy once in a while, but a constant perpetual need to spit for fear of suffocation. It's like your throat is threatening to close off entirely unless you keep the loogies flying. It's really quite gross, but an unfortunate reality of living in a crowded, polluted city. I even gave it a name - PermaPhlegm. I've had to get used to it since arriving which has proved to be not fun as I was the kind of person who NEVER spat in public back home. God my mother would faint from shock and horror is she saw the things I had to do now!

But now that fall and the cooler weather has arrived, we've seen a drastic drop in smoggy days. Things are still polluted in our choked up Korean atmosphere, but they're a lot better than they were a few months ago. And this has resulted directly in a significant reduction in personal phlegm! In fact, current estimates place it at an approximate 68.3% decrease since August peak production rates! Right on! Yah for fall!