Breathless in Beijing: Shane Novak, Owner of Mookey Swim and MFit Kickboxing

Kyle Mullin | Dec 22, 2015 11:00 am | Add a comment | 3371 reads | Sponsored by MayAir

Editor’s Note: In this portion of MayAir’s sponsored series, we interview members of Beijing’s international community about what they think and how they deal with the capital’s pollution woes.

When Beijing’s air quality grows unbearably bad, Shane Novak refuses to despair. The owner of Mookey Swim aquatics centers, and the recently opened MFit kickboxing and Crossfit gym in the Indigo Mall, has plenty of gadgets that help him and his family literally clear the air and keep their lungs healthier. One of the devices he uses is a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which looks a bit like a sleeping bag that the user can crawl into, before it is inflated into the shape of a long marshmallow. Inside, the user is able to breathe pressurized air that is 20 percent higher than typical oxygen levels. Such chambers have conventionally been used to treat scuba diving accidents like the bends, but recent research shows that pressurized air brain and lung health because it boosts the body’s red blood cells.

“It gives you such a boost,” Novak says of the chamber during a recent interview: “Once I’m done inside it I feel so reinvigorated.”

Below, Novak tells us more about his efforts to ward off the smog in the second of a series of articles about how Beijingers contending with pollution.

On heavy pollution days we, of course, do the standard basic precautions that most families with children take, such as wearing masks when outside, minimal exposure to outdoor activities. But it's hard to keep active preschoolers and grade one boys in the house all weekend. My six-year-old has just learnt to accept a red flag day at school and having to stay indoors because of pollution. It's sort of sad to see him look outside and say: “Daddy, I think today is an orange flag or red flag day. No play.”

My favorite place on a blue-sky day is anywhere where there are no crowds also enjoying the blue sky day.

The perfect song to soundtrack a smoggy Beijing day is ‘The End’ by the Doors.

If I could bottle fresh air from one place and save it for a smoggy Beijing day, I’d choose the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. Its air is simply the best, as all the green wilderness and mountains keeps the ocean breezes purified.

When I saw Beijing’s heavy smog for the first time, I felt disgust and a loss of respect for the local leadership. I was disgusted that such greed could put the health of children and old people behind economics.

I was amazed that when they wanted to make a show for APEC and a big parade, the authorities were able to clean the air problem up within a few days. But the political will to sustain that change probably won't happen overnight. Gradually it's changing, but I fear it may be too little too late for the public health problem that will emerge in the coming years as a result of this air.

When people back home ask me about Beijing’s air quality, I tell them: “If you want to see the future, then look at present Beijing today. The world will gradually start looking like this everywhere in my children's lifetime, unless things change quickly.”

Here’s How to Protect Yourself and Breathe Easier
MayAir's purifiers have several pollution busting features, like HEPA filters that ward of PM2.5's and a patented design that transforms VOC's into harmless, easily disposable water. For more information on their top of the line purifiers, visit mayair.com.cn.