The temperature yo yo

Just as I was about to post on how unseasonably cold it’s been in Xiamen, it goes and warms up. What I’ve heard from Xiamen veterans is that the city does not, I repeat, does not get wintry until the Spring Festival.

The irony cannot possibly be lost on anyone here.

So anyway. On 31 December 2003, I had on a tank top, drawstring trousers, and a cardigan. On 31 December 2004, I had on a tank top, red jumper, PVC trousers — which not only look cool, but have the added advantage of not letting any air in or out, and a big-ass wool coat. And I was still cold.

Now, as Neil so often tells me, bodies do not register absolute temperatures, only changes. The week it got cold was not exactly gentle. One day, it was 15 - 25 degrees celsius; the next, it was something like 5 - 15. It stayed like that for a week:

• giving our un-insulated, un-double-glazed, un-central-heated buildings time to get really cold
• allowing us to discover quitre quickly that our dual cycle air conditioner was broken (”Um, it’s not blowing.”)
• several mornings of me squeaking in agony because the bathroom floor and toilet seat were freezing

then it warmed up again this morning, back to mild and balmy temperatures. Of course our flat was so cold in the morning I had no idea this had happened until I walked out, all bundled up.

The explanation is there was a cold front that came in from somewhere around Siberia (I guess that was the reason for the unusual appearance of snow in Shanghai). I suppose a warm front fought back and this ongoing battle is going to go on until sometime in April or May when it suddenly gets blindingly hot again.

Xiamen, as a whole, is not prepared for cold weather. It’s a summer city — the beach, barbecues, outdoor seafood and hotpot restaurants, and so on. It’s only really cold (single figures in celsius) for a month of the year, so no one really bothers about that. The main concern is how to keep cool in the summer months, which run the bulk of the year (depends on who you speak to, Canadians say ten months, me the Southeast Asian whose home country is one degree above the Equator says less). Even the Canadians (or Europeans, I’ve received the views of a Scot and a German) acknowledge that cold weather back home is made more tolerable by central heating.

So. Where does that leave us? It’s warmer today, but the week of cold weather has left our office buildings absolutely baltic, and I type with frozen fingers.

(I like winter. I like winter when there is car heating, central heating, double glazing, and working fireplaces.)

• 4 Jan 2005