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HK deemed COOLEST in the world

The Young Reporter (2008, November), 41(02), pp. 5.
Author: Julie Olivier. Editor: Adrian Wan Chun-ho.
Permanent URL - https://sys01.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/bujspa/purl.php?&did=bujspa0015906

Julie Olivier

It is a scorching and humid day in Hong Kong, with the temperature hitting 32 degrees Celsius. But Miss Marine Simon’s lips are blue, her toes stiff, and her skin full of gooseflesh. She is in a shopping centre in Hong Kong.

Being an exchange student from France at Hong Kong Baptist University, she thinks the indoor temperature is too low. “It’s too cold inside! I’ m afraid I will feel ill,” she said. “This is beyond comfort.”

Hong Kong people are used to going in and out of its icy shopping centres, public transport and office buildings where temperature difference can mount 15 degrees Celsius, all in the subtropical climate.

Like many foreigners in Hong Kong, Miss Simon feels the culture, or receptor, difference most indoors. She does not understand why people are dressing up for the artificially cold weather.

Hong Kong is christened “one of the coldest indoor places in the world” by guidebooks and cross-cultural organisations.

Guidebook The Lonely Planet warns tourists to bring a jacket because “the big chill in the restaurants and buses will turn extremities blue” ; Asia Institute for Political Economy puts on its website that “Hong Kong can be very hot and humid during the summer months ... however, many buildings have very cold air-conditioning, so you should bring a sweater or jacket with you.”

Though air-condition is for the enjoyment of the better-off, many people think Hong Kong is going overboard. Miss Lisa-Marie Sax and Miss Carolin Hohlein from Germnay said drastic temperature change is sickening, especially for those who are not used to it. They are also worried about the elderly or the young’s health whose bodies are less resistant to disease.

There is no valid evidence that the cool temperature actually makes people ill. Reported diseases only concern the humid and dusty air-conditioner filters where molds can breed and spread, thus cause respiratory allergy and diseases, like the Legionnaire’s disease, a serious and infectious disease of the lungs caused by bacteria in the air.

There are, however, many reasons why Hong Kong people set the temperature so low.

Prof Daniel Chan, a professor at the building services engineering department at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), said in an interview with CNN that it is easier for people to put on more clothes rather than taking off clothes, so engineers prefer setting it cooler to reduce complaints by users.

Another explanation is that people in Hong Kong are well-off enough to spend money on air-conditioning. According to a study published in 2007 by the World Market for Air Conditioning, the Chinese air-conditioner market, competing with the United States’, was valued at US $12 billion, whereas the Middle East, Africa and India markets together were valued at US $5 billion.

The cool artificial climate, of course, has many drawbacks. Mr Prentice Koo, a campaigner of environmental group Greenpeace, said electricity used for air-conditioning is indirectly responsible for pollution since 70 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions in Hong Kong stem from power plants.

To save energy and moderate air pollution, the Environmental Protection Department has tried to curb the high air-conditioning consumption by suggesting an indoor temperature of 25.5 degrees, but not many people followed.

Ms Kerry Ho, an assistant shop manager of a boutique, said their air-conditioner is set to 15 degrees in the store despite the government’s suggestion because customers complain about the heat at that temperature.

Professors at PolyU think a mistranslation gave rise to the territory's cold working environment.

They say that when air-conditioning was introduced in Hong Kong in the 1950s, it was translated into Cantonese as “cold air machine” .

As a result, people expect it to produce a cold environment rather than what the scientists describe as proper thermal comfort - a temperature which allows you to work without feeling uncomfortable.

The potential savings of increasing the temperature are huge, they said.

Increasing the temperature in offices across the territory by just one degree would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2.5m tons a year, according to environmental group Friends of the Earth.

A rise of just one degree in a 40- storey building could save almost $26,000 a year.

Back in 1830s, air-conditioners were invented to cool patients in hospitals suffering from malaria and yellow fever. In 1902, Willis Carrier, an American engineer, invented the “Apparatus for Treating Air” for a publishing company; and home air-conditioners have bloomed since then.

Edited by Adrian Wan Chun-ho

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