The tropics!

What images does that conjure?

Warm days and nights. Gentle breezes. And sun. Lots and lots of sun.

Hong Kong has very little of that, this time of year. Hong Kong Island, in particular.

In fact, one of the most significant meteorological phenomena we have observed so far?

The lack of sun.

We have been here six weeks, and seen … let’s see … one sunny day. One.

Not that it hasn’t been hot. I’ve noted/complained about that many times.

But it’s heat with no sun. No sun on our faces, anyway.

Here’s why:

–The eternal overcast. In part, it’s clouds, even fog. In part, the larger part, it’s pollution. HK generates plenty of its own bad air, but a lot more comes from the industrialized, coal-burning areas just north of us, in China-China. The Mainland, as everyone in HK calls it. The smog just lies over this whole area, the Pearl River Delta. Especially when there isn’t much wind, and there is very little wind here of late. The air and gloom isn’t as bad as Beijing was … but it’s on the same spectrum of polluted gloom.

–The architecture. When you live in a narrow strip of land crowded with a thousand high-rise buildings, and the sun no longer is overhead (and it’s not, as we approach the solstice, because we’re close to the edge of the Tropic of Cancer) … if there happens to be a bit of sun, you will notice it only when you are not shaded by a high-rise. Which happens … almost never, here. Especially if you live below the 10th floor and don’t have an unobstructed view of the water.

Thus, the lack of sun can make you a bit weird. Like people who live in the far north. Even though it’s warm, you don’t see real light.

Leah is beginning to have issues with the lack of sun. It reminds her of winters in France.

The lack of sun doesn’t depress me. In fact, I prefer it that way, because I’ve decided the only thing worse than gray and steamy is sunny and even steamier. The times I’ve been out jogging/moving around … the temperature shot up significantly when the sun peeped out. No thanks. And the locals aren’t that keen on sun, either, or they wouldn’t hug the shady sides of the streets the way they do — and carry sun-umbrellas, too.

I wouldn’t mind some sun, eventually. But I am thinking more of the light-shining but not heat-casting, weak sun we in climes further north get in, say December, January and February. I’m not that keen for blazing tropical sun, and I don’t miss it. But it is an odd concept, for sure.