It’s all relative: 01 (Taiwan)

 

I grew up in Singapore where the weather is basically:  hot, very hot, unbearably hot; wet or dry.

    When I first arrived in Taipei on 27 December 1974 to work for Conoco Taiwan, I found it very cold, but wasn’t properly equipped for it, not having had the experience of buying clothes for anything other than the Singapore heat and humidity.

    Stopping over in Hong Kong, I’d bought what I thought would be adequate, but it was only a MacIntosh, which is not even made of wool.  I didn’t even think of buying a scarf or a pair of gloves, never mind a woolly hat.

    I’d go home from work, eat a hasty meal, then jump onto the sofa in the living room, with all the layers I could find (rug, blanket, winter coat, sweater) piled on top of me, and stay there watching TV until shut down time at 11pm.

    No remote controls in those days (not in the flatshare I was in, anyway), so if I didn’t like a programme on one of the two channels, I could either brave leaving the warmth I’d built up on the sofa and switch over, or stay and put up with that channel’s offerings.  No prize for guessing which option I went for.

    At shut down time, however, I had to decamp to my bedroom, where the bed had not been heated up by my body warmth for the last five hours, so I had to start the shivering process all over again.  (No, didn’t think of hot water bottles at that time.  I’d grown up in a culture where “hot water bottle” was only a concept on paper.)

    There was a big tall building across the road from my office block which had a giant digital display on its flat rooftop, showing the temperature in Centigrade, which I had to learn from scratch as we used the Fahrenheit system in Singapore during my childhood days.  (Not that it made much difference, anyway.  I could only relate to hot, very hot, extremely hot, unbearably hot, not cold to the point of shivering.)  I soon learned that if it said 10˚C or 12˚C, it was just about bearable.

    Writing this blog, I decided to google for what zone Taiwan is officially classed under, and I find that it is subtropical for the northern and central parts, with the south being tropical and the mountain areas temperate.  So, Taipei is only one zone north of Singapore, yet its winters could get to 8˚C, while Singapore would be 25˚C at the lowest and then, only after it’s been raining heavily for a few days in succession.

    Fast forward to December 1998 when I went back for my second return visit, after 19 years in London.  I found the weather there mild enough for just a cardigan most of the time, maybe a MacIntosh, but no need for gloves or scarf or hat.  (Yes, there’s always the possibility that it is also climate warming at work there.)

(Taiwan, 1974 and 1998)