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Free from curse of dumbest thing ever invented

By Earle Gale (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-16 09:37

I've been in Beijing for three months and admit to being in the "honeymoon phase" of my relationship with this city. I'm sure China's capital has its problems, but so far, I haven't been hit over the head with them. Instead, I often find myself walking around with a dumb grin on my face and a gut full of the kind of gob-struck awe you might expect from a busload of small-town trainee decorators on an excursion to the Sistine Chapel.

Much has dazzled me but one thing that has impressed me the most is something it does not have - leaf-blowers. The bane of my existence back in Vancouver, Canada, is the leaf-blower and it annoys me on every possible level.

Those foul, noisy, pointless creations are as useful as mudflap on a speedboat.

I'm not saying Beijing is a peaceful oasis. Noise-wise, the city is on a par with the front five rows of an AC/DC concert. But, the honking horns, clattering construction and even the sound of petrol-powered grass mowers chomping park lawns are nothing compared to the awfulness of the wailing leaf-blower.

Indeed, with a world jammed full of problems, I admit to being a little disappointed with myself for making the leaf-blower the thing that has annoyed me.

Back home, I couldn't take my dog for a walk without her being scared half to death by someone wielding a leaf-blower like a weapon. A stroll with my daughter in her pram was incomplete without the need to duck great clouds of leaves, dust and garbage blasted off the sidewalk.

I grew to hate the machines also because they often jolted me from a train of potentially deep thought.

My anger toward the petrol-powered pests has been compounded by the fact that they do so little good. Whatever is blown in one direction will be surely blown back by Mother Nature.

It was a great relief to read recently that environmentalists figured out that each machine pumps out as much pollution in one year as 80 cars, each driven for 12,500 miles.

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