Baby it's cold outside....

Before coming to HK, I was woefully under prepared in terms of what to expect of this city state. Aside from the usual images of tall office buildings, and some notion that there was a harbour here, I was truly clueless. I need to remember my ignorance (only 2 years ago after all) when, as happens frequently, I end up having a frustrating conversation with colleagues in London about some basic fact of life in Asia.

Common bugbears include:
My colleague who insists on referring to HK as "South East Asia" - what does he think is in the north?
Another who lectures me on expanding into China - I had to break it to her that HK IS in China;
Those who think it's perfectly possible to have a morning meeting in Singapore and an afternoon one in Shanghai...
and so on, and so on.........

When I head back to London I'll be taking an atlas with me as a gift.

ANYWAY, prompt for this post is that HK is going through a cold snap, one of the coldest on record. For the past week we have shivered as the temperatures plummeted below 10 degrees. It's been horrible, and for just about the first time since arriving here I've felt properly cold. Before my arrival I had in mind that HK was kind of tropical, and that the only thing to worry about was the heat. Not any more.

As a Mancunian I'm hardly a stranger to crap weather and really should not be finding this spell quite as challenging as it's proving! However, my local colleagues really don't seem to know what's hit them. They are presently modeling a look best described as "urban dumpling" - plenty of layers, top to toe coverage, round in the middle.

Of course, what's going on in HK is nothing compared to the mainland right now where the terrible weather is in danger of causing all sorts of civil unrest. Problem seems to be that the awful weather and the subsequent disruption to travel has coincided with Chinese New Year. Traditionally this is the time that migrant workers travel home - for many this is the only time of the year that they will see their families. Thus you have the scary sight of 800, 000 disgruntled workers queuing up in Guangzhou desperately trying to get back for the New Year celebrations. Scary because this is exactly the type of urban unrest scenario that "the authorities" work overtime to prevent. Witness the Chinese Premier zooming around the country, exhorting, praising and generally doing everything and anything possible to keep the show on the road.

All this makes my current discomfort small fry (to anyone other than me of course) but for the record this will be a weekend spent largely under a duvet, ingesting large amounts of lemsip (yes, I have a common or garden cold to boot as well, poor me) and in general moaning on to any friends who will listen in a vain attempt to get sympathy from them. You have been warned.