Sick Boy[s] Paddle Club↓

Mosquitoes, AC, and the Branch-off of Civilization

renfyoo   

Translated by: Yumeng Zhao

Still couldn’t hit the mosquito. I flung my arms in darkness, like an unavailing wind-catcher. Sometimes, it buzzes by the ear. Sometimes, it falls silent like dust. Erratic shadow flashes in the glow of the phone. Slap. Only the warmth of the wind remains in my palms. An hour passes by, through fingertips, through slaps fell short, without sound.

Biking to work the next day, morning breeze brushing my face, last night’s absurdity came to mind. A thought surfaced: a person's energy is like a pond. If it's driping through a small hole, it will eventually drain, unable to irrigate lush gardens. The mosquito is like the tiniest hole, as with the nights consumed by comparing deals in shopping apps, and more so the sunken cost of forced relationships—they are worms on the cloth of time, riddling it with holes without notice.

My thought was strangely confirmed under the sunlight of Bali. It is a small island near the equatorial, cozy like a leaf in the ocean forgotten by the world. I saw local people’s residence, plain, almost shabby; I was in the hinterland of Nusa Lembongan and ran into an appalling dumpsite; yet in the café by the beach, blonde vacationers were cheering and laughing. Two different lives brushing past each other under the same heat, never intersecting.

Why are tropical countries poorer? I once read a thought-provoking answer—not because of slothfulness, not dullness, but an unseen consumption. High temperature and high humidity are like soaked clothes, wrapped around everyone’s body. Sweat cannot get out. Core temperature stays high. The body has to mobilize numerous resources to react to the heat. Not much energy left for thinking and working. Statistics show that after temperature passes 27 Celsius, physical labor productivity reduces 4% by each degree. This means that the temperature difference between tropics and temperate zone can cause up to 35% difference in physical labor productivity.

Thirty-five percent. The number swirls in my mind, resonating with the buzzing of the mosquito. It turns out that heat is a more enormous, more penetrating mosquito. It chews off our energy day and night, until the strength to build civilization slowly evaporates and dissipates in the humidity. The nights lost in shopping software. The hearts withered in consuming relationships. Aren’t they another form of “tropics”? They wrap us with petty heat waves and trap sweat glands of the spirits, until we give up our imaginations to a broader future in weariness.

The invention of air-conditioning is great not only because it creates coolness, but also because it opens a temperate spring for human mind. In that temperature-controlled, dry space, thoughts can stretch. Creation can take root. Civilization can climb high. Just like this moment, as I sit in a room with air-conditioning, I figured out—true poverty is never about materiality but the condition of energy being consumed without strength to break free.

The mosquito was nowhere to be found. It might have hidden into a corner, waiting for another night. But I know, the thing that needs to be expelled was never just the mosquito. It’s the tedious, long-lasting consumption. The things that make us barren without notice. They are like the humidity in the tropics, like the buzzing in the night, stealing our strength to look up into the starry night, our strength to establish homeland.

Outside the window, high-rises of the city quietly grow. I think that the boundary of civilization might have started when the last mosquito was blocked outside the window screen, when the first breeze brushed through a sober mind.

renfyoo

Stays awake while the moon falls asleep. A female programmer in Shenzhen, an outdoor enthusiast who loves wandering in the world. Captures sceneries on camera on the way and records emotions and thinking in words.