Although Tran Ba Hieu, a 30-year-old Vietnamese PhD student majoring in traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology in Shanghai who has been in China for around ten years, often returned to Vietnam during his summer breaks, there was nowhere for him to escape from the scorching heat during the few summers he spent in China.
"Chinese summers could be really hot and sometimes even hotter than Vietnam as the temperature reached nearly 40 C," he said, recalling that he once read in a newspaper and saw on TV that a raw piece of pork was roasted by simply placing it on the road.
Tran is among the many overseas students in China who come from the countries and regions that are commonly thought of as hotter than China due to their geographical locations, yet find their hometowns cooler and Chinese summer heat more difficult to handle.
As Xiaoshu (Minor Heat in English), the 11th solar term of the year that signifies the hottest period is coming, began on July 7, people in different places in China are suffering from the sweltering heat.
Each summer, the competition of the hottest Chinese cities gains popularity on the Internet and the winners are called "stoves" among Internet users.
This year, the National Climate Center recently released the new top four hottest cities which are Chongqing, Fuzhou in Fujian Province, Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province and Nanchang in Jiangxi Province, according to a report on July 9 from the news Website Guancha.
Other cities famous for hot summers include Wuhan in Hubei Province and Changsha in Hunan Province.
Beijing has suffered from a heat wave over the week with the highest temperature reaching around 37 C.
Hailing from the Republic of Congo, a student at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan told the Chutian Metropolis Daily in a 2015 report that Wuhan, one of the hottest cities in China, was much hotter than Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo and his hometown.
"The Republic of Congo is located in Central Africa and the temperature on a summer night is often around 15 C or 16 C. The highest temperature in the daytime is about 22 C," he said, pointing out that his hometown was in the middle of the rainy season and was not hot at all. "A lot of my Congolese classmates are heading back to our country to escape the heat during the summer break."
A student from Lagos, Nigeria at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology said in the report that although the highest temperature in Wuhan was similar to that in his hometown, it was sultrier in Wuhan.
Zheng Qin, a professor from Central China Normal University in Wuhan who went to Djibouti, one of the hottest countries in Africa, said in the report that although the average temperature could reach as high as 37 C from April to October in Djibouti, its dry air and the large differences in temperature between day and night made him feel cooler than in Wuhan.
Wu Yijin, a geography professor at Central China Normal University, noted that a lot of people considered Africa very hot but said that is not true.
He said that Africa spans across the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere, possessing various climate types, so it is not surprising that some places in Africa are not very hot.
"Africa is a continent with a large part being plateau and the altitude of most places range from 800 meters to 1,000 meters, which helps lower the temperature in some ways," said Wu, adding that Wuhan being surrounded by mountains makes it difficult for the ground to dissipate heat and a large number of rivers make the climate humid.
"People tend to feel sultrier with a high temperature and high humidity."
Wuhan is not the only city in China that makes foreigners feel the sticky humidity in the summer. Victoria Cann, a Jamaican student at Communication University of China in Beijing, believed that it is hotter and more humid in Beijing than in Jamaica.
"Islands like Jamaica are surrounded by the sea, so sometimes we have a bit of a sea breeze," she said.
Tran noticed that although summer in China is shorter than that in Vietnam since the former is generally from June to August yet the latter starts from May and does not end until the end of August, it could be really hot in China, especially in big cities, such as Shanghai.
"Even if the temperature in Shanghai and Vietnam is equally high, say 36 C, people feel hotter in Shanghai because a great number of cars and air conditioners exhaust heat," he said.
Nampet Saesong, a 27-year-old Thai postgraduate student in Shanghai, also considers the summer in China quite hot, even though the temperature in Thailand is higher than that in China.
She explained that in Thailand, it feels like summer year round, so people are used to it and would not feel too different when the temperature rises. In addition, there is Songkran Festival when people splash water at each other to help themselves cool down during the hottest times.
However, there are four distinct seasons in China, so people feel noticeably hotter as the temperature rises from spring to summer.
The days around the time of Xiaoshu are also often the wettest term of the year when rains are highly likely to happen.
Tran said that during the rainy season in the summer in Shanghai when it rains for two to three weeks, he feels even more uncomfortable.
However, Saesong welcomes heavy rains. She considers the rain helpful in relieving the stuffiness brought by the high temperature and humidity. She has also prepared a large umbrella in case the rain becomes too heavy.
In order to cool himself down, the student from the Republic of Congo basically kept himself in his dormitory in the daytime and did not go outside. He did not turn off his air conditioner all day, and kept his room at 26 C, according to the report on Chutian Metropolis Daily.
"If I knew it could be so hot, I would have gone back to my country, but it would cost me as much as 10,000 yuan ($1,469.8) to go home and come back," he said.
When Cann first arrived in Beijing in 2015, she did not understand why some Chinese women chose to use umbrellas on sunny days during the summer, but after spending two summers in China, which she claimed to be very hot, she now sees why.
"When I first came to China, I thought this habit was a bit strange, but [now I know that] umbrellas are used as a protective measure against the sun as many women want to ensure that their skin remains white and fair," she said.
She added that due to the lower energy costs, it is more affordable to use air conditioners in China, so the heat is not as bad once she is inside.
Tran also feels grateful that the air conditioning systems in Shanghai are developed as the air conditioners are always working on the bus, subway and in his university. He also tries to avoid going outside between 10 am and 4 pm.
Saesong often takes cold showers, drinks water and eats watermelon in order to handle the summer heat in China.
In order to escape the heat, she also makes use of her summer breaks to visit the regions south of the Yangtze River where there are various ancient towns, gardens and rivers.
"It would not be that tough to spend Chinese summers eating watermelons at sunset with rivers by my side," she said.
© Global Times
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