On Heat
I’ve never lived for an extended period in a hot place. It’s hard to get your mind around that you are in your suit, cool, working away in a tightly air conditioned building and then bang - your outside hit by a wall…literally…of heat. It’s not the heat itself that is so strange but rather my own conditioning that a grey day outside should be average to cool like it is back home.
Hong Kong is ‘now’ (not sure if it was before) a city obsessed with cleanliness. The city has tackled not just trash on the streets but spitting (a big issue apparently) and street cleanliness very aggressively (lots of fines now). There seem to be masked people cleaning the office all the time - with bleach no less…and every inch of the desk not used, even to within in a inch of my hand, gets a good rub down. I don’t see anyone with masks (well very very few…maybe five) on the street but I see cleaning people everywhere - this is different than that last time I was here and must be a particularly demoralizing effort (although worthy) in this crammed city of seven million.
The automated temperature screening at the airport is kind of cool. Reminds me of all those military or futuristic movies where spies keep an eye on those in the safe house. Except its five thousand people streaming into Hong Kong every few hours.
Off to Singapore tomorrow.