Summer heat's killing me

[con's fly is open]

The humid heat wave continues: it never rains, yet the air is dripping. Yesterday the power went out at around 4 am, so I woke up all my body's moisture sweated out. Thank god it was windy, or my morning class would have been impossible.

Today the power worked... but the water conked out this afternoon.

Everyone's talking about this being the hottest summer in memory. For the first time in my life I wish I was Australian: at least you folks have practice with this horror. Prevailing wisdom figures this will continue through most of August.

I can't think. I can't move. I see the same misery on everyone else's face, too.

Give me bitter winter any day: just throw on more clothes. Is ANYONE in China having a mild summer?

[MK]

Not quite as dire here, but I have been cursing the weather for a different reason. Spent two days confined to the house here in Ningbo as we caught the tail end of that typhoon whasshername this week.

[woza17]

Con do you have AC? The humidity down here is incredible. I am Aussie I hate the heat. But we do have water

[Dragonsaver]

Con

It's just as bad or worse in Ontario. Still 35C and over 70% humidity in my living room. AC is still in pieces in the yard, but maybe next week

On CTV last night they had a young man on who made his own AC using a fan, coil of copper tubing laced through the front of the fan, and a pail of ice water. You run the cold water through the tubing in the ice water and then through the fan. Fan blows cool air on you, warmed water goes down the drain. Very simplistic and potentially valuable when you don't have an AC. Of course a bowl of ice cubes in front of the fan would probably do the same thing

It's just 5 months till Christmas. I will crochet you a touque so your noble brain will keep warm.

[Mr Nobody]

Take one square fan, put tray of some sort filled with ice and water on tope, and put a tea towel in it, hanging down the front of the fan. Dampen the tea towel first, not drenched. Start the fan, letting the tea towel flap. The fan blows air under the tea towel, cooling it evaporatively. The tea towel absorbed water from the ice water in the tray, continuing the process, and the bottom of the tea towel is dryer so it flaps free.

Also can use a fine spray on yourself at intervals, from a cheap supermarket sprayer used for things like gardening. Spray it up into the air, and let the evaporatively cooled droplets hit bare skin. It tingles deliciously.

These two ideas are not so useful in very humid conditions, like woza is experiencing.

[con's fly is open]

What's air conditioning?

What's ice?

Taught this morning, feeling like I was gonna keel over at any minute. Woke up sick, taught sick, sitting miserably in my room waiting for the shower to fill. That should help.

[Mr Nobody]

try the spray thing then.

And ordinary water will do it, just not as nicely.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Jeez Con, that sux. I remember Guilin summers particularly well. One small AC in the bedroom, so we lived there. Writing paper so wet I couldn't send letters. Clothes so wet I wrang water out of them after a few hours wearing. Lots of beer drunk..
The cold weather was bewdiful!
So i'm quite happy with the 2-3 c mornings here in OZ at the moment.
BTW we've got a teacher from Ningbo staying with us tomorrow. Weather shock perhaps?

[con's fly is open]

Better this aft.

Was it the water I drank all morning? The nap? Eating lunch? Having the shower? Or just getting over it? I felt okay after the lunch break, for whatever reason- then the weather turned mild, and it wasn't an issue.

But I have never felt like I did this morning, so I have no point of reference. Can you wake up with heatstroke?

From now until the end of thisw heat wave I'm cutting out the second beer, having a shower right before bed, chugging water like a California lawn, and snacking all day lest my stomach ever be empty. Christ, that was horrible.

[Dragonsaver]

Con

Like, you answered your own question. Water, water, water

For every beer you drink, you need two (2) glasses of water to replace the water needed for the bio-chemical breakdown of the alcohol in your body.

Hence, in a real heat wave you should drink Adam's Ale not Raoul's Beer.

[Mr Nobody]

Dragonsaver has a point there. However, alcohol opens the pores and sweat glands allowing cooling, the bitterness of the hops is thirst quenching, and the chill of the beer keeps you cooler. Plus, blisshed out feels better.

Alcohol is a diuretic, so you piss out more water and ions than you are taking on, and some is used for the breakdown of alcohol into ketones (that is the sort of sweetish smell on drinker's breath). You also need more water to flush out the ketones and aldehydes and other crap in the beer if it has them in it. I wouldn't think two for one, though. One for one probably slightly over does it, depending on your metabolism. But then, I drink maybe 2.5 l per day other than that for the beer.

But you need lots of water, and food. Takes more energy to keep cool that to warm you up, biochemically. With dehydration, you can't keep cool. Your body has no excess water to use to sweat out to cool by evaporative cooling.

[woza17]

The summer camp is great, we go swimming twice a week the AC in the classrooms are artic. I am teaching all the kids how to make pizza, it makes me laugh when they all huddle around the small toaster ovens watching their pizzas cook.

[con's fly is open]

The temperature's dropped a bit, and I chugged water first thing. Felt less sick this morning. Think this may be the solution.

Thanks all.

[acjade]

Oh Con. I feel for you. I grew up in Australia but the heat there and the heat here are two different biochemical experiences. Maybe it's just my mother's salad sandwiches and I sure the high carb content in the diet here is a drain on an already overheated system but even in an Australian drought I've never been so [glow=red,2,300]HOT[/glow].
It's a painful experience especially for us expats of Celtic origin. And to add to the discomfort it's our blood the mizis love to suck on.
Last week I was throwing up because of the heat. It's like my body just collapsed and it couldn't even digest the food in my stomach so it had to get rid of it. Since then I've confined my outdoor activities to early mornings. 6:00am to 8:00am. No exceptions. At that pulseless but still comfortable hour I head off through the compound to the primary school next door and play badmitten for an hour with the kid's aunt and do a few workout exercises on the playground equipment. Then I head back to the house via the common exercise yard and watch the ladies do their manouvers which I find very resting mentally and, socially speaking, it gives me and the neighbours a chance to get to know one another. It's now 8:30am and I do not go outside again until after 5:00pm.
After a shower standing in a rust-bucket bath built for the seven dwarves I write until noon. Try and eat lunch although I have no appetite in the heat and the smell of fried food makes me want to cry. The kids ma has two ways of cooking. Frying everything that moves with God help me, old oil or broiling. The later is saved for ya rou and whole chickens, claws, skull, gibberts and gizzards. The fats ( and sometimes a few feathers) are retained in the tang. No clear chicken broth for you today!
The ma originally came from Sichuan so she uses plenty of la and brown vinegar. Apparently Sichuan women are famous throughout China for their anger. If she's a representative then I can vouch for the saying. She would also have to be the sloppiest, noisiest eater in the Middle Kingdom and thinks it's a kindness to stick her chopsticks in my bowl and/or food. I am also beginning to suspect she's not the brightest omen in the fortune cookie box but I'm not Einstien nor his gifted first wife either. Although my sons are of course.

I'm back on campus today. Arrived here about an hour ago. First thing I did was turn on the computer and dive into the Saloon. That's what nearly two weeks in a Chinese family will do to ya. Crazy! I came back to collect my new visa, sans multi reentries etc as well as catch up on the world outside the dysfunctional family and type up the story I wrote on a bed as hard as a railway track.

And Con. What I find helpful is to eat plenty of fruit and salad type foods, nothing too heavy or fatty. That's another reason I'm back on the hill. After two weeks of fried food my liver hurts and I haven't had more than a couple of glasses of warm beer. It's just not the same cold.
Drink plenty of bottled Lu cha, take as many showers as you can and sleep through the lunch break.

And oh my Gawd.... I've just learned I'm a barfly... I see fields of green, Red roses too..... what a wonderful world. Thanks Cyberfamily. Sanx a lot.

[Canuck]

maybe for a few of my cents worth.. it had been hot in Beijing a few weeks ago as well.. my students were getting sick (from the heat I think). God bless them, they still came to class. I think the trick is to not allow yourself to dehydrate.. and if I remember correctly.. water is the only liquid you can imbibe that does not dehydrate you. Is it a matter of balance?

[con's fly is open]

You figured this out NOW? Woman, you got made 2 weeks ago (3?). You really are heatstroked.

Thanks for the tips. I will take more control of my diet. The school is touting a kind of green pea soup (thin, not like Western pea soup) as a good proof against the boiling heat, and I have to admit it helped. But the fruit-and-light-fare idea sounds like good sense. Boy, the life skills required for Dashiqiao and Calgary sure vary.

For now, it's mild here; it just rained for 3 minutes. It won't be truly horrible until at least Tuesday. And his horrid week (in absolutely every sense of the word- no, no trouble with the law, and that's something) is over... but for 5 minutes of planning for the morning class and some semi-serious drinking. Wish I could get pootanked.

[ilunga]

i've started doing all-nighters in the wang ba and sleeping during the day. can't think of any other way to beat it.

[Mr Nobody]

Actually (to comment on Canuck's query) many things rehydrate you just fine, including sports drinks, vegetable and fruit juices, milk etc.

But water does it best, and the advertising that says sports drinks are absorbed faster are LIES that they had to take off the ads in Oz. Water is fastests, but anything with mild concentrations of salts and sugars are absorbed just fine, and you need these as well. Eg veggie juices. I just drink litres of water a day, and eat my veggies cooked, though, so no worries.

Here, in Nanning, at the centre of my universe, the weather is hot, but handleable. I am not truly suffereing, but then, I am not working either, makes it easier.

It is definitely more pleasant here than in HK or Guangdong.

[Roger]

I fled the Guangdong sauna and ended up in the torrid Taklimakan, TUrkestan aka Xinjiang. When I got off the bus at Turpan, the lowest point of all of China and below the sea's surface by 150 meters, the temperature was reported to be 46 degrees. I was not at all unpleasantly affected!
There was a light breeze carrying off any droplet of sweat off my skin; the air was dry as bones. At night the mercury dropped by a full 24 degrees and sleep was refreshing (the aircon was on, admittedly, but I would have felt exactly the same sleeping outdoors...).

I am now in HAMI, 700 meters above sea level; the thermometer stands well below 46 - maybe 34? It is still agreeable. The only trouble is the FIERCE sun. In the streets the sunlight actually blinds you, and as you walk you get ultra-violet-roasted.

My drink uptake has increased considerably; what's the best? Water? Not that tainted one in plastic bottles! I am craving a French BADOIT because they have a slight mineral taste and come with bubbles.

I definitely am not in favour of COke and similar qishuis! They bloat your guts! The best drinks I have been drinking for weeks now were those wonderful bottled grape, peach, blackcurrant and lemon juices.
The CHinese tell me it is not a good idea to drink fruit juices... they think you should eat the whole fruit AND WASH IT DOWN WITH WATER... Hahaha! They don't know WHAT'S BEST FOR BOTH MY TASTE BUDS AND MY HEALTH!

Beer is fine - if drunk moderately. But boozing in this scorching heat is definitely...stupid!

I visited vineyards outside TURPAN, entered the private premises of an Uygur family and was shown to the Grape Valley (Putao Gou) - which was COOL to experience, see, be in... so un-Chinese I forgot how hot it was!
It is an actual oasis, lush green constituted by tall leafy trees and gnarled eucalyptus trees that border rows of vines strung on wires one meter plus above ground. Imagine the farmers at harvest time (now until maybe October!).

Anyway I was glad to read Guangdong is now experiencing one of this and last centuries' hottest summers - with me safely away from its mosquitoes, sweat-prompting humidity and pollution! 30 degrees in Guangdong on a July day is more unbearable than 46 degrees in the arid deserts of Xinjiang!

[Canuck]

Refined sugar is a nutritionally deficit food/non-food item (beer). It will give you energy for about 15 minutes then leave you with less energy than you started with. Natural sugars are good. i.e. fruit and vegetable drinks( sucrose). Salt is good for retaining energy that you may lose through sweat.

[Da Dan]

Watermelons or other melons from the fridge are great, get the small one serving sized ones
Eat plenty juicy fruits, they help your body in many ways.

Cold green coconut milk freshe from the nut drank with a straw is great too

Haikou is pretty comfortable, the sun is pretty strong but it's not as hot as I remember it being in Guangxi. There is a nice sea breeze here.

I only have a fan on me now but will use the AC when I have my afternoon nap.

The house I'm in has AC in every room, classrooms included so one can stay dry inside.

Nights are warm, sitting outside drinking beer can be a sticky experience if the wind dies...

I was talking with the old guy here we call ¡°uncle¡± & I came to the conclusion that when a Chinese person says a place is hot, like most do about Hawaii & many friends said about Hainan before I came,

They mean the sun is strong & you will get black there.

Hawaii is definitely not a hot place & I'm finding Haikou to be much cooler than other places I've been in China this time of year.
`Sure, it is a bit hot but not Very hot here like I was told it will be.

[Mr Nobody]

canuck said:

Refined sugar is a nutritionally deficit food/non-food item (beer). It will give you energy for about 15 minutes then leave you with less energy than you started with. Natural sugars are good. i.e. fruit and vegetable drinks( sucrose). Salt is good for retaining energy that you may lose through sweat.

Err, not quite correct, although in the right direction.

Sugar (by which you probably mean sucrose) is sugar, from any source, natural, chemical or otherwise. It has the same food value regardless. Mixed with other stuff, it is buffered out, that is all. The sweetness of fruit it partly supplied by fructose, twice as sweet but with somewhat less calories.

Beer has some sucrose in it, also, and maltsose, but the alcohol does several things, including having an effect on the insulin levels. Plus supplying "empty calories". So, pretty much, does rice, bread, and so on, really. However, beer isn't a valueless food. It makes me happy.

You are using the term energy to mean sort of two different things. The feeling of being energetic, yes, due to insulin relese when too much glucose enters the blood. Each type of sugar has the same energy regarless of source.

Salt doesn't retain energy: Salts, including NaCl, are used to keep the ion balance balanced. A good thing, yes.

Sorry to be a pedant.

[con's fly is open]

The weather's been affecting my classes.

I was teaching one of my favourite classes to the new kids: body parts. I take pieces of paper with "ear' and "knee" on them, get them to say each several times, then tape them onto the appropriate part. Gets a huge laugh, and they soak up the spelling like you wouldn't believe.

Problem this time, though: I was sweating buckets, so the adhesive didn't work for long, plus the fan kept blowing them off me.

And my impudent T.A. refused to wear the "vagina" tag.

[Mr Nobody]

Ah, Con, mate, is anyone filming any of this for the projected TV series?

[Decurso]

My headmaster told me the worst was over.Hebei has gone through it's hottest summer in more than fifty years."We have suffered greatly this year" he said.

But today...39 freakin' degrees!My sweat is on the verge of short circuiting my keyboard.

BTW..according my Chinese friends it's fall now!