Old Skool Fan
Sometime around now, Shanghai shifts gears and rather abruptly begins to feel like the changing room of an indoor public pool.
It’s not hot out yet; Summer’s freakish sweaty heat has yet to descend. It is humid though. Your skin feels clammy and ever so slightly damp– but it isn’t hot. That will come in a few weeks.
Bedding starts to feel oppressive at night. The mosquitoes start to gather. The rattling drone of the cicadas in the trees that line the street starts to escalate. The air is heavy and frequently white.
By June, your students (should you be a teacher) will be melting in their desks, fanning themselves, sweat stains marking their shirts, brains unfocussed. In the classroom, it is as hot and humid inside as it is outside (unless you work in an expensive private institution). There is no legislation that says buildings must be air conditioned (or heated in Winter if you are south of the Yangtze) so many places simply won’t turn it on unless absolutely necessary- if it is even installed.
My last school had neither heating nor cooling. We wore our coats and scarves and gloves in class in February and sweated and fanned ourselves in June. At my current school, we have an air conditioning system but the classrooms have huge, single pane windows lining one side of the rooms which let in the summer sunlight and the winter cold draughts. Most of the time, however, the strict classroom monitors (all Party members) are on energy conservation kicks and so turn off the AC and open up all the windows for invigorating fresh air.
The Plum Rains of June- sudden and fierce cloudbursts that briefly interrupt the heat- signal the beginning of summer. By July, you sit at your desk with sweat trickling down your calves, fanning yourself. It hovers in the mid-30s until late September, with humidity nearing improbable percentages. Last summer we went to Indonesia for relief from the heat and humidity. Indonesia! When we came back, everything in our flat was mouldy from the air being so wet- bedding, walls, bathroom grout, sofa. I couldn’t breathe for weeks.
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