In Heat

I have to turn my hot water heater on a half-hour before I take a shower. Otherwise, I'm looking at a three-minute shower followed by bone-chilling cold water. Discovering this the hard way was no fun! But turning on the water heater beforehand adds eight or nine minutes of hot water. And, let me tell you, they are a critical eight or nine minutes. This process is nothing newsworthy, but it's another one of those minor reminders that I'm not home anymore.

Another reminder is that the heat should be shut-off in my building today. One of my colleagues seems to recall that last year on April 1, his apartment got very cold. This makes sense. The buildings in our neighborhood appear to be at least 30 or 40 years old so they were designed before China made its change to a capitalist market. Everyone in the building pays the same fee and gets the same heat. It's pretty simple.

While this is a fair approach, it's also a sign that China has some work to do in terms of energy conservation. Sometimes the apartment gets too warm and you have to crack open a window. After all, wasting energy is no fun, but neither is sweating at home.

On the upside, I must admit that although the weather is colder here than in Shanghai, it is much easier to deal with because the inside is so much warmer. The two main reasons for this are that the homes in the south of China do not have central heat while the northern buildings are designed to insultate heat.

I'm posting this on the first day of April, the month where the weather convinces you it will stay cool forever before suddenly changing. While I like winter, I'm looking forward to the warmer weather and experiencing how life changes around here.