Urban Skyline

China has a well-earned reputation for ugly, industrial cities blanketed in choking smog. But that’s not the whole story. The haze you see here is only partly smog; most of it is mist above the ocean water, and that burns off by midmorning. Qingdao is a city of hills and trees. It has its ugly industrial suburbs and it’s sterile districts sprouting glass towers. But the old part of town is red roofs and green trees, with fresh air blown in off the sea.