Hong Kong Tourists Use Fake Skyline Backdrop During High Pollution Days [PHOTOS]

China’s continuous battle against air pollution often makes local and international headlines. Since most of the pollution is concentrated in the nation’s big cities -- where the majority of the country’s breakneck economic development takes place -- many cities have seen their air quality deteriorate.

Skies full of haze blurs out what would otherwise be the stunning skylines of China’s biggest cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai or Beijing, and images of the smog have been plastered across the news. The Wall Street Journal reported that Hong Kong air pollution levels reached extreme levels this week, turning the famous Victoria Harbor into a steamy sauna of humidity and noxious air. The high pollution levels registered in the former British colony prompted government officials to advise residents to stay inside.

However, Hong Kong is a major tourist attraction, especially for mainland China tourists, many of whom insist on snapping a picture with the famous Hong Kong skyline as their backdrop. But when the city’s air quality greatly affected visibility in the city recently, Hong Kong had a backup plan.

Chinese website Netease published a series of photos of Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong and ignoring the city’s bad-air day warning. These tourists posed in front of a photo backdrop of clear blue skies over Victoria Harbor. The story, which was also picked up by Shanghai-based news-blog the Shanghaiist, prompted them to ask why their city's often pollution-blanketed Bund doesn’t have something similar.