when my mom went to china last year, she also came back with a cold. maybe the place is too dusty
i hope you get well soon. colds are very annoying.
Beijing is not unlike Mexico City, but even worse in terms of the air pollution and when the wind kicks up, you literally get dust blown in your face and it stings your eyes and throat. The constant construction everywhere you look kicks up city-sized clouds of dust and the wind just blasts it everywhere.
Actually the air pollution in all of China's large cities is nothing short of unbelievable to me. How the residents of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, Chengdu, etc. manage to breathe on a daily basis is a miracle which I cannot comprehend. I'm used to the (relatively) clean air in the States where even bad day in LA is nothing compared to an average day in Beijing and the air in these cities was like a toxic fume for me.
It doesn't help that over 300 million people in China smoke and they fucking do it
everywhere, they smoke in cars, in elevators, in every building and on every street. I swear to God that I saw someone try to light a cigarette up on an airplane when I was on a domestic flight the other day and the flight attendant had to stand there and tell him to cut it out or else. The smoking in this country is an epidemic and it's downright disgusting. The whole country smells like the inside of a Las Vegas casino, you literally cannot walk anywhere or stand anywhere and avoid getting a lungful of someone's death sticks.