It's Not The Heat. It's The Humidity!

I know there are much hotter places in the world than Taiwan (India, the Philippines, and Death Valley, CA come to mind), but anyone who's lived here can testify that it gets pretty hot in the summer. On the other hand, most people in Taiwan find the winters cold here. Being a Canadian, raised in northern Manitoba, I find them comfortable (in T-shirt and shorts). The summers however, have taken some getting used to.

As I write this (mid-April), it's technically not summer yet, but it's starting to feel like it. For instance, right now it is +30 C with 63% humidity (which is not bad, actually). In the summer months (July-August) it'll go to +35 C for daytime highs, and the humidity will hang around the 80-90% range. At night the temps will only cool by a couple degrees, so there's no relief there.

Being an island surrounded by ocean, Taiwan is perfect quarry for such weather. Here one can truly say it is the humidity. Where else could one take a shower, dry off with a towel, and still be soaking wet? One can work up a sweat by merely breathing. It's not unusual for people to have several showers a day (a necessity) and change undergarments just as frequently (highly recommended).

The humidity affects other things as well. If you own any expensive camera equipment, it's best to keep your lenses in a dry box, as it won't take long for mold to grow on the glass. Cuts and scrapes on the skin take a lot longer to heal than they do in drier environments. Forget about trying to use down pillows and comforters. And I don't know the physiological explanation for it, but the humidity somehow really does zap your strength/energy (at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

They say you do eventually get used to it. Maybe so, but I've never felt comfortable walking around in wet clothes. If you do want to be comfortable in your home, expect to pay a high electricity bill for running the AC's (I often wonder what our Taiwanese neighbors think when we start running the AC's in April, when they typically won't turn them on till July! "Wimpy foreigners.").