Who’s been mucking about with the sun?

I’ve been sorting out lots of files on my computer, and found a story I wrote soon after Peter and I went to China the first time, and decided to do a bit of research. Here is the email to the family on the subject of getting my bearings as far as directions were concerned. I called it......

Who’s been mucking about with the sun?

Someone’s been playing games and not told me. I’m pretty sure about that.

Peter and I lived in New Zealand for much of our lives. New Zealand is in the south of the southern hemisphere, pretty much at the bottom of the world. The next stop is Antarctica. 

Winters were quite cold there, although it rarely snowed in our part of the country. However, we knew that the sun lived at the top end of the world and so we never bought a house with the main entrance to the house facing the bottom end of the world because that is where the howling southerlies came from and invaded your warm home every time you opened the door in winter.

Therefore we looked for houses that had doors facing north, east or west and that was very sensible. Our homes were designed for outdoor living in the summer, but more importantly to keep warm in the winter. We always knew which was east and west, and even though the sun moved around a bit up and down the globe, we knew it rose in the east and set in the west but lived up the top. No problem.

Then when we moved to Australia, we found that houses were designed to stay cool. In Queensland because even the winters are warm, there is a whole new mindset involved. So they have doors, and lots of windows that open in any direction so that any breeze will wander into your house and keep you cool. Very sensible.

Even so, the sun still rose in the east and set in the west, and spent most of its time up in the top of the world.

But about the time we came to live in China, someone made some changes. Either someone moved China or else someone has been mucking about with the sun. The Bible says that faith the size of a mustard seed (a really tiny seed) could move mountains, but I’m not sure about moving a country as big as China.

However, somehow, China seems to have been turned one quarter of a turn on the globe, because, and I kid you not, here the sun rises in the south and sets in the north. I have always had a really good sense of direction, and generally could find my way anywhere, (within reason). In Napier, the hill was north, the sea was east and everything else could be worked out. In Australia the sea is east, the storms come from the west and you can work out the rest. But not so here.

For some reason I have yet to find out, China builds all its houses facing the same way. There are rows and rows and rows of these high rise apartment buildings, usually built in housing estates, and they generally all face the same way. They have the long side of the building facing one way and the short end of the building facing the other way. And it seems to have completely messed up my sense of direction, because, it is an absolute fact, that the sun is now rising in the south and setting in the north and it does the same thing every day.

I am going to add some photos in here. These were taken from the top of the building on the left, the Financial Trade Building in Shanghai. The height is not so clear from this angle, but the Trade Building is quite a bit higher than the Jinmao Tower next to it, a rather lovely building when you see it up close. 

 The Trade building has a viewing platform on the 94th floor. It is 100 floors high I think. This is the viewing platform below. The 94th floor is at the top of the gap in the building, sometimes refered to as the can opener due to its rather unusual shape and the gap in the top. Part of the floor is glass so you can look right down to the ground.

Of course,here in Longyan you can go for days without seeing the sun, just a mist everywhere, all day every day. Sometimes you get the see the sun as a giant red ball as it rises and then a giant red ball as it sets, but that is all you see of it all day. In fact the first time we saw the sun set we were absolutely convinced it was the moon rising! It took us a while to figure it out; it was just too red for the moon.

Living in China now, I realise that I am at the top end of the world and things will be different. For those of you who have lived or travelled from the bottom bit of the world to the top bit of the world, or vice versa, you may have noticed the same thing. How did you deal with this?

At the moment the sun is whirling around directly over poor old Rockhampton, causing heatwaves and such. It definitely is not close to China because our highs here in Longyan are 10 to 15 degrees and our lows are 3,4,5,6, etc. In Beijing, (who would want to live there?) they are having lows of minus 15 and highs of minus 5. What joy! And I am told Longyan gets much colder in February, so course we are really looking forward to that!

Taken from the 94th floor. All the apartment buildings facing the same way, south I guess.

Alos from the 94th floor. More apartment buildings in Shanghai, by the river in Shanghai.

The Jin Mao Tower is in the front of this picture and the Oriental Pearl Tower is in the background. It will give you an idea of how high up I was. This is in the central part of Pudong, the centre of Shanghai. Most of the buildings in this picture are offices, hotels etc, this is the business district, so not necessarily built facing south. If you want to stay somewhere posh the Hyatt Hotel starts on the 54th floor of the Jin Mao Tower. They have an observation floor on the 87th floor.

Anyway back to the subject. I am still confused about east west north and south, and all that stuff and as my sense of direction is usually really good, I am quite sure someone has been playing games with the sun, and if  it was you, please could you put it back again? Or if someone actually has turned China one quarter of a turn on the globe, please could you undo it for me?

To use one of Peter’s latest words, I am somewhat discombobulated. Thanks.

My originial email to the family ended there but today I thought I'd find out why this is so. This link explains it a bit. I think it might be from old times when feng shui was important. It seems houses mostly face south, the direction the warm weather comes from. That makes sense to me.

 http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/3intrhme.htm