a pound of flesh. plus some.

Hohhot just turned up the hot.

Two weeks into summer. Thirty-two degrees. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Just an endless blue sky, a searing sun and hairy sweaty bulging bellies at every turn.

I knew summer here was going to be hot. Google told me so. Wikipedia told me so. Lonely Planet, Aston, the ancient volume of Encyclopedia Britannica gathering dust on my parents' bookshelf. The whole damn world was warning me.

But back when I signed that contract in January, I figured - ah, I'll handle it.

The things we learn.

This is only the beginning. July, I'm told, can [and will] hit thirty-nine degrees.

[someone save me]

Am mildly comforted by the fact that I’m not the only one suffering. The local park is littered with panting bodies stretched out in hammocks or on the footpath. The more desperate are joining the dead fish and stinking rubbish in the lake [read: cesspool]. Students gasp their way through Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in our airless forty-degree classrooms. Young and old Hohhotians are sucking down iceblocks for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Chinese women especially fear the sun. God forbid their skin be a shade beyond milk-white; the slightest tan is as undesirable as finding a cat hair in one's noodles. Those who dare to venture into said disfiguring rays do so beneath a [suitably garish] umbrella, long sleeves, gloves and a hat. And, to be sure, a skin-bleaching sunblock.

Men - unfortunately exempt from Snow White rule - are zealously rolling their shirts up. Great hairy swollen paunches saunter alongside the taut midriffs of mohawked teenagers; shirtless middle-aged men sit glistening over warm beers in restaurant windows. No gut is forsaken.

But when that cursed ball of fire sinks below the horizon, all is forgiven.

It’s like flicking a switch. Summer evenings in Hohhot are riot of food, beer, street stalls, plastic tables and bad music blasting from bad speakers. Once-quiet streets are clogged with hawkers [bellowing handbags nail clippers Spongebob socks slingshots ] who jostle for space amongst street food stalls [frying noodles skewered meat seaweed tofu]. Daytime dust and pollution are choked by the stink of oil and grease and chilli and barbecued flesh of godknowswhat animal.

Life resumes. People eat, gossip, laugh, sing, cry, shout, drink, yarn, eat some more. People celebrate being able to breathe freely; being able to stand up without their arse sticking to the chair.

The crowds, the noise, the joy, the sensual pleasure of it could almost make one forget the stifling sickness of the day.

Then I wake in twisted sheets and too-thick air with sandpaper mouth and stinging eyes. Solid wall of heat burning through my limp curtains.

Frizzy hair. Swollen feet. Sweaty backside.

And my neighbour's glistening girth.

Twelve goddamn hours to salvation is just too goddamn long. Bugger this; I'm going home.