Sub-Tropical Climate and Mosquitoes
by Japes, LincsMag Writer.
Date: 29 April 2013
Hello and welcome to my monthly report from China entitled ‘Letter From China’ – it’s almost brilliant. Well I’ve been here for 2 years now and I’ve learned a lot about the Chinese character and the Chinese way of life.
Unfortunately I haven’t learnt too much about the actual Chinese characters themselves which are used to form words for their writing, sorry about that but it’s just so alien to the English eye. The first, most basic and easiest word to recognize is 人 or ren in English letters which the Chinese call the pinyin and this means people. Actually the Chinese language is very simple in some aspects so for example 人 actually means both person and people.
Should we stop there?
The Rain
Right now it’s raining heavily and whilst for 2 years a discernable pattern had seemed to emerge as to the seasonal weather, this year instead of the Summer being very wet and hot it seems the Spring is being very wet and well, from the end of March onwards it can also be very hot, not unnaturally because this is a sub-tropical climate in the Southern part of a Southerly province. And that province (Guangdong) actually lies in the same latitude as Northern Vietnam, Vietnam being a bona fide tropical country.
The photograph above is of me standing on a wall was taken in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago. Whereas the climate here in Southern Guangdong is quite uncomfortable for quite a period of time and aggravated by the presence of mosquitoes, the weather in Shanghai is refreshingly cooler and more importantly without the customary mosquito escort so that you can open a window there at night and have no fear.
I hope you don’t mind me waxing lyrical about the weather for a few paragraphs but the English are supposed to be really interested in it.
Them Mosquitoes
How to cope with mosquitoes has turned into something of a science for me and I feel I’m on the verge of being able to write a book about it soon. But a few techniques brought to your attention will suffice for now.
1. Critical means of defence and attack : Doors and windows - sounds obvious but wait. It’s not just a matter of keeping the windows shut when possible and closing the doors. That’s not going to stop the little blighters !
The windows themselves need meshed screens fitted which slide in front (I had to fit some of these myself). So you’re going to open the window; you need a tea towel although they’re not the tea towels as we know them. If you’re right-handed you open the screen and then the window behind with your right hand whilst simultaneously wafting the tea towel into the space created with your left hand and then draw the screen closed rapidly over the open window. Failure to do this will result in a tea party for the mosquitoes later in the evening.
You’re going to open the doors. Good. The Chinese have the good sense to use an inner and an outer door and the outer door can have the wire meshing fitted over the gaps which it has – yeah actually I’ve got some photos of these.
Why do you concern yourself with the latest news from Hollywood or pictures from the Paris Fashion Show ?
Co-ordination is important. When leaving the flat take a tea towel with you (which you’ll need for the return leg) and having opened the inner door enough to get your foot in, just open the outer door slightly and in one movement leave the flat, swiftly closing the inner door behind you. You can actually hear the mosquitoes who have been viciously lurking in the recesses of darkness, cursing and swearing to each other and saying “Damn! He’s closed the inner door !”
A Cloud of Mosquitoes
The natives here are not bothered by the mosquitoes. The peasants walk amongst their vegetables right through a cloud of mosquitoes freshly fashioned from hell and are quite unmolested. A mosquito here thinks like the giant spiders in Lord of the Rings which get tired of orc flesh, so when a juicy white Westerner turns up with blood type AB they rub their hands with glee.
I admit I’ve felt a little resentful sat with some locals outside in the summer evenings trying to protect my exposed flesh whilst they’re wearing next to nothing and I think ‘Why don’t they land on them? Look at all that skin!’
Well catch you next time.
