Eric's Beijing Diary

Took a bunch of my old winter shirts to my tailor and had him cut the sleeves off. Spring is in full bloom, and summer is almost upon us. I usually tell people that fall is the best time of the year in Beijing, but this spring has been one of the nicest in my memory. With Beijing adding 1000 new cars to the roads every day, I just don't know how much longer we will be able to enjoy this. Ladies from Shanghai sometimes complain about the dry air in Beijing, but I like it. Summer is coming, though, and Beijing does a flip-flop in the summertime: very high humidity with the heat to go with it. In Arizona they are fond of downplaying the tremendous summer heat by saying, "It's dry heat." Suffer through a Beijing summer, and you will know what they mean. When the humidity is over 90 per cent, your body can't sweat properly. I have never actually been here through an entire summer, because I always escape to the western mountains.

The whole thing wouldn't be so surprising if it were not such a sharp contrast to what you normally expect. When I am in South China, I expect hot, humid weather. But in Beijing with it's cool fresh breezes both spring and fall, the summer contrast is really quite mind boggling.