In the sweat

Between bursts of rain, with the humidity at ninety eight percent, we live. We play ultimate in Tai Wai in the evenings, emerging under the lights dressed mostly in cleats and sweat to run. We sit outdoors at coffee shops in Kennedy Town after dropping Fives at school, doing work calls and feeling the weather.

The air is sticky, is wet. It is a physical presence in every room, in every coffee shop, on our way in and out of the MTR. It’s a thickness I love about hong Kong, part of what is good here, something I’ve missed since the fog of the Inner Sunset.

The humidity comes at a cost, things molding immediately in rooms without the AC on, in the kitchen where they touch the outside walls, in the kitchen in general. In April we came home from two weeks abroad to mold on the tatami, which required a multi-stage cleaning of everything. Shoes de-laminate at a speed that feels unnatural, that makes me question quality control when I should only question glue. Nothing can remain glued for long in Hong Kong. No post-it or 3M surface adhesive hooks will last.

And then at ten fifteen one night the sky splits and curtains of water obscure everything, hammering against the windows and sweeping up Wun Sha street and into the hills. We watch signs blow away, laundry hanging on the rooftop buffeted and pulled from the lines, and we check our two small windows for leaks. I open the window in the bedroom and hold my arms out to feel the crush of the water. We lie in bed watching until it eases, fifteen minutes later. So much force held tight and then released.

The next morning the laundry lies on the rooftop, disheveled and baking in the sun. The humidity has returned, or never left, and we get milk tea and coffee under an awning on plastic stools while sweating. We put away our pants. It will be months before we think of them again.