河國榮, An Aussie in Hong Kong

The last time I wrote about the weather here was back before the Chinese New Year when it was foggy and wet. Guess what? It's still foggy and wet. In the last eight weeks or more, we've only seen six or seven days of warm weather with sunshine. Otherwise, it's been foggy and wet. The only difference now is that the temperature is on the way up with average temperatures of mid-twenties (that's celsius for those of you in fahrenheit countries). By summer time, the temperature will be up in the high twenties and sometimes near the mid-thirties. It can get very warm here.

Living in the fog, the humidity is very high. The tile floors inside the apartment and outside the back door are still creating water without any help from us or the dogs. It makes it very difficult to keep the apartment clean when the floors are constantly wet or at least moist.

I've lived in Hong Kong for the last 18 years, and I've lived in our current area for five years. This foggy weather is very unusual. We normally get foggy weather each year, but it's normally in March and only lasts for three or four weeks. It even has a name. It's called "Return of the Southerly Winds" or 回南 as it's known locally. With this big change in weather this year, I believe we can look forward to some really strong and powerful hurricanes in early and late Summer. We had a couple last year but I haven't really seen anything really strong since 1985 when I visited Hong Kong the first time for just a week with a fellow student from the University of New South Wales.

You have to remember that I come from Queensland, Australia where they have real hurricanes except that they're known as cyclones there because they rotate in the opposite direction. At least that's what my friend says. I remember that we had cyclones in Queensland when I was growing up, but I also seem to remember having hurricanes. I always thought that hurricanes were larger in diameter than cyclones. I guess I was wrong. If my father reads this, I'm sure he can enlighten us all.

Which brings me to another small detail that came up as a consequence at lunch the other day. Supposedly, water while flushing down the toilet rotates or swirls in opposite directions in Australia and Hong Kong because they're on opposite sides of the equator. I believe it but I've never actually made the effort to compare the directions for myself. Maybe I'll check the next time I go back to Australia.

And that brings me to Annie's song: "Oh, the sun'll come up, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun." I hope so; soon at least.