I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you (YOU) to the worst time of the year in HK. Yes get our your woolly cardigans, jumpers and mittens everybody, for ’tis the cold season where no self-respecting office, restaurant or shopping mall will be seen dead with an indoor temperature of more than 6 degrees (celcius.)
As we know, the colder the air the cleaner it is, and so we have the interesting phenomenon of: Outdoor temperature: 32 degrees. Inside office temperature: 11 degrees. Airconditioning can’t be adjusted so office workers wear woollen jumpers and have small personal heaters under their desks.
Surreal, or just the celebrated “Hong Kong Style”? The latter of course! Always the latter…
And the buses! And the Taxi’s. You’d think that Taxi’s as individual profit maximising entities would NEVER put the aircon on. What’s happened to the good old HK money grabbing ethic. Aircon just doesn’t make sense in that way…
I hate it too.
I get to work really early. Open the window wide, welcome in the pollution and get to work.
About 1.5 hours later, my (chinese) collegue arrives and the first thing she does is switch on the aircon. High. Or I mean low. Low temperature that is and high fan speed.
I leave my window open.
That way, I don’t need to put a sweater on.
Weird.
Its only about 28 degrees. That’s NOT HOT. and the humidity is still way under 50%
I have to agree with that, as a matter of fact, last time i was in Hong Kong, it was freaking hot that day, i think around 31ºC and i was supposed to go to watch a movie at a cinema theatre ( my first time ), all my friends said bring a jacket, but i thought to myself: ” Why should i bring a jacket when it’s so hot outside?”… My worst mistake, as i arrive to the movie theatre, close to the Box-office i started to wonder why all the people there had a jacket with them. Soon, i came to realize that the temperatures inside the movie theatre were close to the ones in the North Pole…i had to learn this lesson the hard way!!!
Oh yeah and the KCR… actually they and the MTR (now as one) have got marginally better over the years as have the ferries after numerous complaints.
Every year these Western newcomers arrive in Hong Kong and ask me, full of childish wonder: “Why is it so COLD inside? Don’t the Chinese have the ability to feel cold?”
That’s a good question. The secret could be thermal underwear.
I watch these newcomers as they thrash and writhe trying to fight the system… and then gradually start carrying bigger and bigger bags each summer, to accommodate more and more extra clothing.
Instead of the ludicrous and much maligned (few things have been more maligned in fact) “Hong Kong, Asia’s World City” I think we should be called: “Hong Kong! We Use The Resources Because We Can!”