10 airports, six cities, and an infinite number of fish tacos

Greetings, dear readers--or at least the few that have stuck around through the last few weeks of radio silence. Mrs. Blog and I were on our annual sojourn to the United States of Awesome, a land where portions huge and old friends plentiful.

This is our second trip back to the U.S. since landing in Hong Kong. The first was just a few months after we moved here; we were still settling into the 852 and had not really acclimated or explored the city, let alone experienced all four seasons and the multitude of festivals that crop up throughout the year.

That first trip was pegged to my grandmother's 100th birthday, but beyond that it was a chance to relate the move and our first impressions of Hong Kong to our friends and family firsthand.

This time was a little different. Hong Kong is an incredibly dense place. Space is at a premium; everything is designed to be efficient, if not aesthetically pleasing. Housing is stacked on top of stores, and those buildings are stacked on top of a ruthlessly well-run public transit system. Sidewalks are crowded. Subways are crowded. The harbor is crowded. Even the parks--more remote and larger than you might think--can be crowded.

So when I landed in Chicago (not a small place), it was a little jarring. Where were all the people? Why did all these buildings only have one or two stories?

The city of broad but very spread out shoulders.

It was also shockingly cold. As Mrs. Blog, who served as the advance scouting on this journey, told me: "it's colder than you expect." And yet even with that expectation, I was surprised. And jacketless. But thanks to lots of warm times with good friends, I survived... and even grilled outdoors.

The "wow, things are really spread out!" nature of the trip faded after a week or so. Other things did not. I know America gets rung up all the time for having high rates of obesity and cities get mocked for instituting regulations on restaurant meals and Slurpees, but WOW are the portion sizes big in the U.S. On more than one occasion, I found myself uncomfortably full, or eating more than I wanted just because it was there.

Quick political aside: yes, I do believe in personal responsibility and that people should have the right to be unhealthy--including smoke, drink and overeat--but it seems to me that when there is a collective downside to this kind of individual behavior, we need to consider doing something about it. There is a lot of unfounded complaining about illegal immigration's drag on the economy (it is actually a net positive), but the shared costs of obesity, heart disease and so on should really spur the same kind of outrage. OK, I'll get off my nonexistent soapbox. Back to the travelogue.

Now. Let me be clear about something: the food in the U.S. is outstanding. So many good restaurants in Chicago alone. And indeed, Mrs. Blog and I were craving what I think every American expat craves: Mexican food. Great Mexican food just does exist outside North America. So it is a major part of the agenda whenever we return home. In fact, of all the cities on our itinerary--Chicago, Kansas City, Anaheim, San Diego, Seattle, Sequim, Wash.--K.C. was the only one in which we didn't at least have chips and guacamole. Getting outstanding Mexican food was in fact so engrossing that I didn't even bother to take pictures of any of it.

So you'll just have to take my word for it that I had tacos and a torta just outside the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School in Miramar, Calif. You might know it better as Top Gun.

Things I do have pictures of: A trip to Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, where Mrs. Blog got her first taste of Royals baseball, i.e., a heartbreaking loss.

It looks way better than the last time I was there, but the result was the same.

The hills of Anaheim:

The mountains in the distance never come out as well as I want them to.

The beaches of San Diego:

... which I never actually set foot on, sadly. Hey, I was wearing nice shoes.

The amphibious assault ships of Bremerton, Wash.:

A terrible picture of a nifty vessel.

And of course the sandwiches of Chicago. (The backstory here is that we went to Vietnam and couldn't find a banh mi in Hanoi as good as the ones from the shop around the corner from our old place in Lincoln Square.)

How do you say "drool" in Vietnamese? (photo courtesy Mrs. Blog)

In Anaheim Hills I also got this video of our dog--now retired and living in Orange County--doing what she does best, i.e. getting excited at the prospect of chasing a tennis ball. (also shown: the Sister-In-Law of the Blog and Her Black Dog.)

So if you're keeping score here, you'll see that we hit six cities during our stay. I was in the U.S. for 17 days, not including travel time. And so even my atrophied math skills can do the grim calculation here: I was flying roughly once every three days. We got to see a lot of dear friends and family. But what we never really got to do was unpack and catch our breath. That's why when we wound up in the final leg of the trip--Sequim, where the Parents In Law of the Blog have a home in the hills--the natural surroundings were even more relaxing than they might otherwise have been.

Seriously. We drove into Olympic National Park, where the view from Hurricane Ridge is like a scene out of the Sound of Music, complete with a deer in repose:

The hills are alive with the sound of me breathing deeply.

Amazing, right? Mrs. Blog stayed there a bit longer to help her parents, but it was time for me to head back to the 'Kong.

And as it turned out, there was one more story to tell. On the flight back to the Special Administrative Region there was a long leg, Seattle to Tokyo, and a short leg from there.

On the long leg, I had quite an interesting seatmate: an apparent international taekwondo champion, author and current star of a multilevel marketing empire called Kyani. It was probably the longest and most interesting conversation I've had on a plane with a person not named Mrs. Blog. She told me about how she competed well into her 50s, how she spoke fluent Spanish (with no hint of her Georgian accent, apparently), how she was a competitive horse jumper once upon a time, and of course about the benefits of Arctic blueberry-derived health supplements. So that was cool.

And then on the short leg, serendipity:

That's right. Legroom AND champagne.

Business class. Thanks to a family friend with a long career at the airline we were using, there was a chance of an upgrade on each leg. It finally happened between Tokyo and Hong Kong. Sure, it was only a four-hour flight. But being able to put my size 15s up on a padded footrest and watch a bad movie is like gold.

Now I'm back in Hong Kong. The city remains much as it did before I left, except rainier: it's monsoon/typhoon season. My desk has an extra monitor now, giving it the "command center" look:

Yes, the larger monitor is sitting on a book. It's a metaphor.

So after nine flights*, I'm right back where I started. Now all that's left is to meet up with friends here and tell them all about how great the fish tacos are in America... and how many of them there were.

*Yes, nine flights but 10 airports. Airports utilized on this trip: Hong Kong, Narita, Detroit, O'Hare, Midway, Kansas City, Denver, Orange County, Long Beach and Seattle.

Offensively Sweaty Gweilo IV: Packin' Heat

Greetings, dear readers. It's time once again for another installment in the occasional series of answers to your burning questions for Hong Kong's most overheated resident.

It's after Thanksgiving, kids, and you know what that means: Holiday lights are up, and the temperatures are down. I wasn't quite sure what to expect on either front--Mrs. Blog and I got here in late January, so the arrival of winter is a new thing for us. But I can safely say that things are definitely gettin' festive up in here, and in a development that seemed unimaginable in August, I am now wearing a coat to work. It is waterproof.

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo,
I see that you're now wearing a waterproof coat to work. Way to stay behind the curve! I have been wearing a fleece for several weeks now. You probably already have hypothermia.

A: Yep, I noticed that. But to be fair, you also carry an umbrella on sunny days. The thing is, though, it's still not cold--not really. Not like it was in Chicago. I could easily walk to work in shirtsleeves and not be particularly uncomfortable (assuming it's not raining. I'll get to that in a sec.). At night it has gotten just chilly enough, like in the 50s, to warrant a jacket. Plus, this particular jacket, which Mrs. Blog bought me in Beirut, is awesome, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm glad I have an excuse to wear it.

Q: But OSG,
 it's raining so much! Aren't you afraid you'll ruin your coat? It is awesome, as you pointed out.

A: Aha! But my coat is waterproof. This also means I am somewhat protected if I'm caught without an umbrella... and that means I can leave my umbrella at home more often. Everyone wins, especially the people I accidentally poke with it on the subway.

Q: OSG,
In your home country, does it get gray and rainy just as you're putting up holiday lights?

A: Depends on where you are, really. In Chicago, my most recent city of residence in the United States of Awesome, it tended to be a little cloudier during the winter. But mostly it just got cold. The cold of deep space. The cold of a Antarctic grave. The cold of a political strtegist's heart. Often, the sun would be shining on what appeared to be a beautiful day, but when you went outside, your tears would freeze. Anyway, the point is, is that there were lots of beautiful decorations, but it would often be more comfortable to view them from inside.

Q: Hey, OSG,
What are you doing to get into the holiday spirit? Besides listening to all the Christmas music playing in our grocery stores over... and over... and over.

A: Well, we're getting a tree! That's a big step--it's our first actual Christmas tree since we moved overseas. So exciting that I'm not even really concerned about cleaning up all the pine needles afterward. We're also enjoying all the holiday lights that have sprung up in the last month or so. My office building, the festively named K. Wah Centre, is festooned with an almost-complete holiday message in 20-foot-tall letters made of colored lights. It currently reads "Erry XM," but I'm sure they'll get it finished by the time XM rolls around.

In the meantime, Hong Kong, a city with an impressive skyline already, is becoming full of displays like this:

Megawatts' worth of peace on earth.

And our apartment is getting full of visitors. That's the kind of thing that warms a heart, no matter how kind-of cold and perpetually rainy things get outside.

Power to the people

So the storm formerly known as Hurricane Sandy (now the much less-impressive sounding Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy) is, as anyone with an Internet connection or an East Coast mailing address can tell, knocking out power to huge numbers of customers. LINK



Living overseas, I have heard a lot of people wonder, "why on earth do people in the richest country on earth have to deal with power outages during storms." This, apparently, is not common in most other developed countries.

The bottom-line answer is simple: cost. With estimates that burying power lines runs up to $15 million per mile, wind-proofing your power grid can be pretty pricey.

But it's a little more complex than that. It's not just that it would cost the power companies and their customers money to bury power lines. It's also that those companies have determined that it's actually cheaper for them to string lines from poles--and periodically repair them--than to bury them and repair them less often.

Burying lines to begin with is cheaper; you're not replacing anything, you're just building infrastructure, and as it's likely there's a road being built nearby, stuff like excavation cost is less prohibitive. That's why newer communities tend to have buried power infrastructure. (And places like Hong Kong, for instance, which saw an explosion of building in the last 50 years, are ahead of the game. No power outages during Vicente!)

Additionally, outside of the Pacific and South Asia, which are next to huge bodies of storm-generating water, you just don't see the volume of severe weather in other countries that you do in the U.S. that you see in other countries. A meteorologist could explain the "why" better than I; the effect, however, is that the country's power grid takes more of a beating than other places. And the fact that the country is so large--and population so spread out, outside of dense cities--contributes again to the cost-benefit analysis of using power poles rather than buried lines. It also goes without saying that the U.S. doesn't always do a great job of recognizing the potential for disaster.

The end result? The richest country in the world deals with a lot of storm-caused blackouts. That might be the most cost-effective way to handle power transmission, but judging by the way things are going for the folks in New York today, I'm not sure it's the most customer-friendly.

Ask an Offensively Sweaty Gweilo III: Playing it Cool

Hello, faithful followers of this irregular column. It's been a while since our last installment--which found the titular gweilo swimming in perspiration mid-summer--and there is news to report. Specifically, the arrival of autumn.

Summer was not. Not Abu Dhabi Hot, but uncomfortably warm, especially when walking to work in long sleeves. It was also wet. We had a big ol' typhoon, and for a while there it was raining almost every day.

September, though, seems to have been equipped with a meteorological "off" switch for all that stuff. It's sunny. It's breezy. And most important, I can make it from the MTR stop to my office without mopping my brow even once.

So with that in mind, let's dive into the totally-not-made-up mailbag:

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo: It's great that you're not offensively sweaty anymore, but I have noticed you still don't make much of an effort to stay in the shade. Don't you know what the sun will do to you? Carry an umbrella!

A: Oh, trust me--I am well aware of what the sun will do to me. I am familiar with the sting of denim on a sunburn and the soothing properties of aloe. But one cannot live in fear, right? And if nothing else, I'd like to get a little bit more color; I may never be anything but a "ghost man," but a bit of tan actually makes time in the sun more tolerable. That's one reason why I don't carry an umbrella. The other is that it's not raining. And when you've got 8 million people packed into a tiny island, carrying an umbrella to protect you from the sun AND the rain can get a little awkward, no?

Q: Hey, OSG--we noticed you at a Mexican joint in TST the other night. You're always making noise about finding good comida Mexicana outside North America... what did you think? (P.S. You did not appear to be sweaty)

A: Sharp eyes. Yes, Mrs. Blog and I went to place over there to meet some friends. And you're right--I was not sweaty. We were actually right underneath an air conditioning vent, which kept me a normal temperature and made Mrs. Blog chilly. As for the food, well... they have great happy hour drink specials. The search for excellent Mexican food continues, and I'll let you know if there are any developments. There is actually a place in our neighborhood that is supposed to be pretty good, but it has always been closed when we try to drop by.

Q: OSG, in your homeland, fall means the start of football. How's that going in Hong Kong?

A: Not well, both in terms of watching it and results. I can't say that the air here is crisp and full of the delicious aromas of tailgating, so my normal instinctual drive to find a game is not at its peak. But even if I did want to watch a game, they start--at the earliest--at midnight Hong Kong time. And also they're not on TV, meaning I would have to resort to [REDACTED] measures. On the plus side, both my beloved Jayhawks and Chiefs lost their games this weekend, so at least my eyeballs didn't have to endure that.

And that's it for the September edition of AOSGA. Remember, keep those questions coming, stay cool and please... look where you're going when you're carrying an umbrella.

The Great Typhoon of Aught-12

Sunday evening, there was a tropical storm named Vicente plowing along more than 250 kilometers south of Hong Kong. It was headed almost due west, and its 100-kilometer-per hour (about 60 mph) winds were projected to make landfall somewhere in China.

But when I woke up on Monday, the storm had turned 90 degrees to the right, which put it on a due-north course... directly at the Special Administrative Region. The Hong Kong Observatory issued this warning, known as "hoisting the signal":

That meant: "Strong wind is expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong near sea level, with a sustained speed of 41-62 kilometres per hour (km/h), and gusts which may exceed 110 km/h, and the wind condition is expected to persist."


But as the day went on, it became evident that Vicente was not going to deviate from his course again. And the storm grew stronger, with sustained winds of up to 120 kph near its center. By midafternoon, the observatory announced it would be increasing the warning to this...

... before 6 p.m., meaning "gale or storm force wind is expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong near sea level, with a sustained wind speed of 63-117 km/h from the quarter indicated and gusts which may
exceed 180 km/h." And looking out my office window, I could see why. The rain was pretty much nonstop, and winds lashed the side of the building. When it was clear enough, I could see trees bending and whitecaps on the harbor. Once the Number 8 flag was raised, everyone in my office (and every office across Hong Kong) was obligated to go home. Taxis disappeared. Buses stopped running. And although my commute home entailed literally two minutes where I was not sheltered from the storm, I arrived at our front door looking as though I had taken a fully clothed shower. Umbrellas don't protect against horizontal rain, and even if they did, it wouldn't have mattered--mine turned inside out.

I took a picture of the storm as seen from the base of our building, and I don't know what to tell you--it was much more impressive in person.

If the wind had changed direction, I would have been soaked.

Anyway. Safely ensconced in our high-rise, I, Mrs. Blog and a friend turned what had been planned as a low-key taco night into an impromptu typhoon watch party. Tacos and gale-force winds... what's not to love?

Documenting the guts of the storm at night with my iPhone would have been difficult, I think. You saw the picture of what it was like outside. Inside our local department store, there were a few effects:

 Protected from the elements?

But it was a pretty intense experience. The high winds caused our ears to pop when they blew at our building from the right direction. Our poor air conditioner struggled as gale-force winds battered its exhaust vent. Rain pounded against the windows with a vicious insistence. And overnight, the storm intensified according to the observatory. First to a nine:

Which meant "gale or storm force wind is increasing or expected to increase significantly in strength," and then to a 10:

Ten is the second-highest warning they can issue here, and the most recent hoisting of the 10 signal was in 1999. Officially, it means "Hurricane force wind is expected or blowing with sustained speed reaching upwards from 118 km/h and gusts that may exceed 220 km/h," and practically, it means stay inside and keep your head down. There are a lot of glass-faced buildings in Hong Kong; all of the businesses I passed last night had taped their windows or fixed boards over them.

And I guess it all paid off. Supposedly only about 100 people were injured and no one was killed. This morning the storm was downgraded to an 8, then back to a 3. Now it's just windy. And on the streets, it's business as usual... almost.

 A relatively calm morning... but the PLAN is still parked outside my apartment.

Signs of the storm were everywhere. On the highway exit near our building (which you saw from street level in the first picture I posted), trees sprawled across the road.

Just another commuting obstacle.

On train stop where I get off for work, the crowds to get on the train were so thick they spilled from the platform back into the hallways leading to the platform. Only a few dozen passengers could make it onto each train.

 Fortunately I was going the other direction.

On the street, there was detritus everywhere. Remember how I told you my umbrella turned inside out? The sidewalks were a graveyard of umbrella devastation.

Not storm-proof.

Signs had blown down, leaves were strewn about and a lot of businesses were still closed, despite the crowds of commuters.

 Some umbrellas didn't even make it to the trash can.

Which direction was the wind blowing last night? Let's ask these trees (the air was calm when I took this picture):

The answer appears to be west.

And that's the story of Typhoon Vicente, as seen from about 100 kilometers from the storm's center. It has moved on now, passing almost directly over Macao and making landfall at Huangmaohai.

There is only one higher level of typhoon warning, the "10 signal plus black rain." That is not likely to happen while I'm here. But until it does, I can say Mrs. Blog and I made it through the biggest typhoon to hit Hong Kong in more than a decade... and toasted it with margaritas.

The PLAN and the albatross

Ever since Mrs. Blog and I arrived in our apartment, our view of the harbor has included one constant (besides the harbor and Kowloon on the other side): a giant catamaran cruise ship anchored right outside our window.

At first it was cool, in a "I've never seen a catamaran that big in person" kind of way. Then it just got annoying, in a "this stupid ship is ruining the view" kind of way.

Last night, as the Typhoon Signal 3 was raised--indicating "strong wind"--I saw something amazing: the catamaran, lit up like a Bun Festival tree, motoring away under its own power. This was more notable to me than it probably should have been, but the boat had begun to feel like a giant, white, in-no-way-like-a-bird albatross, hovering near our building for no discernible reason.

This morning it had been replaced by:

 PLAN party cove?

Although in Chinese culture just about everything has significance in terms of luck, good fortune, wealth, I'm not sure what to make of these two ships, which appear to be assault landing craft. They're at anchor, and definitely not landing or assaulting anything, so that's good. But there is speculation that the Chinese military is putting on a show ahead of Establishment Day on July 1--that's the day Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese. Every year, apparently, there are huge pro-democracy marches here on that date, as masses of Hong Kongers take to the streets to make it as obvious as possible that they are very happy with the "two systems" aspect of China's official One Country, Two Systems policy toward its special administrative regions.

Mrs. Blog and I will be in the United States of Awesome, unfortunately, and won't get to witness the marches--a form of organized protest we most certainly did not witness in the UAE, where life is perfect and everyone loves the sheikhs. But at least we can say we had a good view as the People's Liberation Army set up its front-row seats for the big day.

Offensively Sweaty Gweilo II: This Means Warm

(This is part of an occasional series in which I, the Offensively Sweaty Gweilo, answer questions both real and imagined from the world of Hong Kong)

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo: So, I see you are walking a lot more slowly now. (But still in a straight line! Oh well, you're getting there.) Has this helped your offensive sweatiness at all? Summer is upon us, after all.

A: You noticed! Although I can manage to make it most of the way to my office on foot without spending too much time outside, the last few blocks from the MTR station to my office are exposed. Some days that means getting wet. Lately it has mean getting sunned on. So I have tried to follow your implicit advice and slow down. This has definitely reduced the OS part of OSG. I'm also keeping close watch on whether it offers me any kind of new perspective about rushing through life, running to get to work, real Ferris Bueller-type stuff. I'll keep you posted.

Q:What if you're not going to work? What then? I would suggest stopping in a shady park and practicing tai chi or honing your sword work.

A: Mrs. Blog and I have hiked up into the hills with no particular destination in mind other than a nice spot to eat lunch. And honestly, when you're surrounded by greenery, with the hum of the city reduced to, well, a more distant hum, there's no point in moving fast unless you're trying to get away from another hiker who is, for no discernible reason, blasting Cantopop from a tiny speaker hanging around his neck. We have also taken nice walks around our neighborhood, traipsing through the waterfront park. Tai chi or sword spinning or even some kind of fan-based martial art all look inviting when you practice them in such pleasant surroundings. I'm going to start small, though, and try out all the bizarre exercise equipment built into the park first. Like the revolving platform that you stand on and twist from side to side... what exactly does that do?

Q: Yo, OSG: Hot enough for ya?

A: Come on, really? First of all, pretending you have uniquely great/terrible weather is kind of universal. Humans just need to believe that they have something to brag about, even if they're bragging about basketball-sized hail or frying eggs on the sidewalk. So not only is Hong Kong not superlatively hot, you're not even superlatively bragging. Now. Having said that, yes, it IS warm, but Mrs. Blog and I just moved from the desert. A mere 90 degrees in June makes me want to go to the pool, nothing more. Speaking of which....

Q: Dear OSG, we have all noticed you commenting on the lack of lounge chairs at the pool. What's the problem here? What kind of Gweilo madness is it to go to the pool but not want to get in the water?

A: You have keen eyes. Mrs. Blog and I have indeed been scoping out the pool. And it's not that we don't enjoy swimming--we do! It's a perfect activity for a slow-walking summer day. But consider how you could prolong the pool experience and heighten its enjoyment by adding, say, a book or a nap to the mix. Neither sleeping nor reading work well underwater, but in a lounge chair on a hot day? Oh, yes. Give it a shot... you won't regret it. Unless you get sunburned, which is something the OSG has always fought a losing battle against. But that's a question for another summer day.

As always, keep the questions coming! Possible topics for the next installment: A day at sea on a junk, the prevalence of water balloons in Hong Kong culture, and whether I cool down when I'm visiting America.

Rain

Maybe it has something to do with growing up on the plains, where summer storms are plentiful, powerful, and visible from a long way off, but I have always found myself soothed or even oddly moved by a good deluge. Rain snick-snicking on an umbrella is a treat (unless you are trying to carry a bunch of things and stay dry at the same time); the white noise of a nighttime shower is a relaxing blanket when you’re trying to sleep (unless you suddenly remember you left the windows in your car open). Waiting out a rainstorm at a baseball stadium, an excuse to enjoy a beer, a hotdog and a cooling breeze in the middle of August. Laughing as you get caught in a downpour with someone you love.

The first short story I ever sold was called “Rain,” and the protagonist sought solace from his current situation—caught in the teeth of a steamy, jungle-based South American war—in the memories of childhood rainstorms.

Needless to say, it rains all the time here. Sometimes it’s annoying, like when I forget my umbrella or was planning to spend the day doing something outside.

But a lot of the time I find it stirs a sort of quiet contemplation.

Lightning flashes over the hills of Kowloon at night. A maelstrom of rain turns the air over the harbor opaque. A morning storm wakes me up with thunder and apocalyptically gray skies, and after pouring some coffee, I watch the rain pummel the pavement 13 stories down.

Yeah. There’s no telling why, exactly, I feel this way about heavy rain. But here in Hong Kong, I’m glad I do.

Ask an offensively sweaty gweilo anything

As summer approaches on the little subtropical island upon which I now live, temperatures are rising. They are not now, nor will they ever get to be what I call “Abu Dhabi hot,” which is in the range of 115 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. But Hong Kong is subtropical—that’s why there is so much lush vegetation everywhere—and that means enough humidity to make a guy like me perspire in the act of tying my shoe.

And because I am generally much bigger than the locals, that means I am a large pillar of sweat walking among them, riding the MTR with them and crowding onto a ding-ding with them. Contact is assured, and assuredly unpleasant for them. I’m sure they were wondering what the deal was (Did he just run a marathon? Does he have a high fever?), and that has led me to write this, the first of an occasional series in which I, the offensively sweaty gweilo, answer these types of questions, asked and unasked. So without further ado, let me mop my brow and begin.

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo,

Why are you sweating all over this ding-ding? There is a pleasant breeze, you’re wearing short sleeves and sitting still. Help me understand this.

A: Ah, you probably saw me on Thursday. You see, Mrs. Blog and I (who is a gweilo, but most certainly not an offensive one in any way) were doing some painting. And as the bedroom neared completion, we realized that we needed one more liter of this very specific Sudan Sand color. So, long story short, I walked all over our neighborhood, then the next neighborhood over, and finally two MTR stops away to get the right stuff. And, well, motion generates heat. It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. Sorry if I slimed you.

Q: Dear OSG,

I, a native Hong Konger, walk everywhere. There is great public transportation and the city is full of places to go. Yet I manage not to collapse into a puddle of saltwater. What’s the deal?

A: Well, I have a theory. You know how you will sometimes frustrate me by meandering along the sidewalk when I am in a hurry to get somewhere? I think you’re walking more slowly, consciously or not, to save energy and thus get less hot. I, on the other hand, bounce along on my freakishly long legs and get my metabolism all worked up. So maybe if I worked a little harder at going native, I could work a little less hard at not dripping sweat.

Q: Hey, OSG,

When I get hot, I just take off my shirt. You have probably seen me in the market, on the street, riding a motorcycle and in the mall. It’s a good solution.

A: And a fine solution it is. I have no problem doing this when I am, say, working around the house or playing basketball. But there’s something a little odd about being in a shopping mall without your shirt that I can’t get past—sorry. (Although I did once go to a New Zealand grocery store barefoot.)

Q: Dear OSG,

Since you are so comically oversized, do you ever have problems with the dimensions of everyday life here?

A: Hey, thanks for the non-sweat-related question. And the answer is yes. The ding-ding, for instance, has a ceiling that is probably about six feet tall. Maybe a little less. Which means if I’m not sitting on one of the benches, my neck is bowed down like a sad giraffe. The MTR is fine, except for the doorways—I have to duck about an inch. I was in a bank the other day in which all the employee-only doors looked to me like secret passages, with a height of no more than 5-foot-10. Having said all that, this is a city filled with people of all shapes and sizes, so it’s not usually a huge inconvenience. Except shoes. I haven’t laid eyes on a pair of size 15s since I left the U.S.

And that’s it for this installment! Thanks for writing in, and as always, the Offensively Sweaty Gweilo will be happy to answer all your burning questions… just as soon as he has a nice, cold glass of water.

The danger zone

Yesterday, a tornado tore through the town of Joplin, Mo., a couple of hours away from the city where I grew up. Dozens of people already have been confirmed dead, and the damage is massive--neighborhoods destroyed, stores leveled, a hospital gutted.

It is an awful scene.

Yet it is interesting looking at the perceptions of the devastation in the eyes of the world media. Outside the U.S., it almost appears sometimes as though the Midwest United States is just a snakepit of deadly tornados, and every city will be hit eventually. I think that is partially because tornados are so rare outside the U.S., and because they really only make news outside the country when they are horrific.

But in fact, although there 1,266 tornados in the US in 2010, only 45 people were killed. All of those deaths are tragic, but it shows how rarely a twister hits a populated area. (which is simple odds, by the way: most of the country is unpopulated, making it unlikely a city will be hit) Indeed, the Netherlands has the most tornados per square mile in the world... yet rarely are there fatalities.

I recall an exercise from a high school class, in which we were divided up into groups, like tribes, and told to find a place to settle on a big map of a fictional continent. Every area had natural hazards--earthquakes, floods, heavy snows, electrical storms and, yes, tornados.

Everyone worked really hard to place their settlement in an area without any natural hazards. But in every case, that was not only almost impossible to do, but an area without any hazards inevitably lacked resources like water and fertile soil. Then the teacher pointed out the obvious: that these hazards really weren't that hazardous at all in the grand scheme of things. No civilization has ever been wiped out by lightning strikes. And some, like ancient Egypt, thrived by living right on the edge (and sometimes square in the middle) of a flood plain.

The one exception I'll give you is volcanos. They have a long, proud history of wiping out civilizations.

Anyway, my point here is this:

No matter how dangerous "Tornado Alley" sounds, it's actually a pretty safe place and some of the most fertile soil in the world. Living there is not like building your house in the path of a freight train... it's more like betting that a freight train several blocks away won't derail, go airborne and land in your backyard. It has been calculated that any one neighborhood (like a square mile or so) will be hit by a tornado once every 2,200 years. A serious tornado, one with winds faster than 150 mph, is more like once every 7,000 years.

The town of Joplin will recover from the devastation. And cities across the United States and the world will continue to thrive in the face of wind, floods and earthquakes. Human beings are just resilient that way.

Can we talk about the weather?

This morning I heard on the radio some extraordinarily unpleasant words. Words I am tempted to not repeat, because they might keep Mrs. Blog in the U.S. until after the autumnal equinox.

It is allegedly going to be one of the hottest summers on record here in the UAE.

Already there is anecdotal evidence--humidity today hit 95 percent, beyond which it would have started raining. And it ain't gonna rain. That meant the 35 degree Celsius temperature today felt like 68 degrees. In American terms, that's 154 sweat-soaked degrees of Fahrenheit unpleasantness. And without the humidity, it still would have been 95 degrees F.

So I guess I should hunker down and turn up the air conditioning. Inshallah, by the time Mrs Blog gets back it will be safe to go outside again.