appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Wee Kek Koon

Europe is currently in the grip of a fierce, unrelenting heatwave, with temperatures in several countries surging past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
This is not simply a matter of discomfort. Extreme heat is a public health emergency. When temperatures climb beyond what the human body can regulate, its cooling systems begin to fail. The most vulnerable – older people, those with chronic illnesses and anyone without reliable access to cooling – bear the heaviest burden.
I was in Prague at the height of the heat, when the beautiful city turned into a baroque oven. Like much of Europe, Prague is architecturally designed to conserve warmth through long winters. That same design becomes a liability during prolonged summer extremes. Air conditioning remains uncommon, given the region’s historically modest number of scorching days.
I have a surprisingly low tolerance for heat for someone who spent his formative years on a tropical island, and I was surprised to find myself emerging from those two infernal weeks in Prague with both health and sanity intact.
So, how did societies in the past develop their own responses to summer’s excesses without mechanical cooling? In premodern China, coping with heat was a well-honed practice, blending material ingenuity with aesthetic and philosophical adaptation.
Coolness was not only found in chilled delicacies, clever engineering or escape, but in achieving a sense of peace and balance within oneself
Wee Kek Koon
Clothing was one of the first lines of defence. Early silk production had already reached extraordinary levels of refinement, yielding fabrics so light they seemed almost weightless.
A silk tunic from the Han period (206BC-AD220), recovered from an official’s tomb, weighed a mere 49 grams (1.7 ounces) and was woven so finely that light passes through multiple layers of the sheer fabric. Such garments offered a degree of coolness in oppressive weather, though they were, of course, largely reserved for the privileged elite.

Food and drink formed another crucial front in the struggle against heat. Centuries before refrigeration, ice was harvested in winter and stored, often in underground icehouses, for use during the hottest months, when it was deployed to chill wine, cool interiors and produce seasonal delicacies that offered both relief and pleasure.
Despite modern Chinese health admonitions against cold foods – warnings I have heard repeated with great seriousness by friends and family – historical practice tells a different story.
Cold noodles, iced drinks and frozen sweets were widely enjoyed in China’s past. By the Song period (960-1279), urban residents could choose from an impressive array of chilled refreshments sold by specialist vendors, making summer survival more enjoyable.

Architecture, too, played its part. Buildings were oriented to capture prevailing breezes and encourage airflow.
Wealthy households and imperial residences incorporated shaded courtyards, water features and pavilions designed to create microclimates of relative coolness. In some cases, water was even engineered to flow across rooftops or through interior systems, subtly lowering ambient temperatures.
For those able to leave the city, the most effective strategy was simply to escape. Officials, poets and ordinary citizens alike would retreat to the cool mountains, rivers and lakes when circumstances allowed. These seasonal migrations were not merely practical; they became a cherished cultural rhythm, transforming relief from heat into an occasion for reflection and leisure.

Yet perhaps the most enduring response to summer’s severity was neither technological nor geographical, but philosophical. Many traditions emphasised that true comfort begins in the mind. Inner stillness, they argued, could soften even the harshest climate. Coolness, in this sense, was not only found in ice, chilled delicacies, clever engineering or escape, but in achieving a sense of peace and balance within oneself.
It was this idea that I found myself returning to in Prague, as the city baked under the scorching heat. Whenever I thought the temperature was becoming unbearable, I would quietly repeat the mantra: “Xinjing ziran liang” – when the heart is calm, coolness naturally follows. And it worked, though perhaps not as well as an air conditioner.


A Polish priest’s perilous mission to save a doomed Chinese dynasty with Catholic links

Amid Trump’s ‘Lake America’ stink, the Chinese emperor whose renaming campaign backfired

From prison and poverty to Chinese emperor: the rags-to-riches tale of Liu Bingyi

How national holidays in ancient China aligned with emperors’ birthdays, so all could revel

Lessons from China's history

As Europe bakes in summer heatwave, how people in China kept cool before air conditioning

A tourist cools off with a folding fan in Prague, Czech Republic, on June 28, 2026. Temperatures in several European countries have surged past 40 degrees Celsius in recent days. Photo: EPA

A replica of a 49-gram silk dress found in a Han official’s tomb was finally completed in 2019 after years of effort. The dress is currently on display at the Hunan Museum in Changsha, in China’s Hunan province. Photo: Xinhua

Lightly poached fish and sugar snap peas with soba and seaweed. Like today, cold noodles were widely enjoyed by people in premodern China as a way to beat the summer heat. Photo: Charmaine Mok

Before air conditioning, Chinese elites incorporated cooling architectural features such as pavilions, shaded courtyards and water features. Photo: Baidu

How the Chinese language has long been shaped by foreign influences

The Hong Kong Academy of School Managers holds an event on traditional Chinese costume and calligraphy at Maryknoll Secondary School in Sau Mau Ping on July 9, 2023. Some of the most significant changes in the Chinese language shaped by foreign influences have occurred not in vocabulary but in the grammar and sentence structures that shape how Chinese is written and spoken. Photo: Sam Tsang

People rest outside the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Singapore’s Chinatown on February 12, 2026. Are Singaporeans of Chinese heritage “Singapore Chinese” or “Chinese Singaporean”? The debate reveals elements of cross-linguistic influence over the centuries. Photo: AFP

A giant bell at the Luoshi Si Ta (Kumarajiva Pagoda) Buddhist temple in Wuwei, in China’s Gansu province, is covered in Chinese characters. Chinese was influenced by the arrival of Buddhism in China from the first century AD. Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A calligraphy work by artist Wong Chau-tung is displayed at “Calligraphic Art: Interaction Between Hong Kong and Iranian Artists”, an exhibition at the Hong Kong Central Library in Causeway Bay in February 2023. Photo: Jonathan Wong

How Teochew people spread from China, and their outsize influence from Hong Kong to Thailand

Li Ka-shing meets the media at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai in January 2019. The multibillionaire tycoon is arguably the most well-known Teochew person in Hong Kong. Photo: Felix Wong

Wang Yantong (left) and Chen Qinqin in a still from Dear You. The film, which has become a surprise box-office hit in mainland China, features dialogue mostly in the Teochew dialect of eastern Guangdong.

A Teochew-style marinated goose dish served in Hong Kong. Photo: Shutterstock

The history of weiqi, or go, Chinese board game dating back over 2,000 years

Weiqi, better known in the West by its Japanese name, go, is played by two opponents using black and white stones on a board marked with a 19-by-19 grid, creating 361 intersections. Its history dates back more than two millennia. Photo: vvoe/Shutterstock

A maglev game of weiqi is played at the 5th Exhibition of International Works of Arts and Sciences in Beijing, China, on November 3, 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Hong Kong principal’s Singapore disgrace highlights centuries-old educational standards

A still from a viral video shows Hong Kong principal Lee Cheuk-hing exchanging heated words with security guards outside a venue during a school trip to Singapore. Lee tendered his resignation to the San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, after the incident sparked online outrage, but it was rejected; the school has instead opted to fire him.

Lee talks to pupils on a school bus. The Hong Kong principal’s behaviour during his heated confrontation with Singapore security guards has prompted much discussion and reflection on how educators conduct themselves.

Zhu Xi, a Song dynasty philosopher and head of the White Deer Grotto Academy, encouraged discussion and reflection, and insisted that learning must go hand in hand with moral self-cultivation.

Lifestyle

Chinese culture

As temperatures soar, our columnist takes his cue from premodern Chinese, who used clothing, food and even a Chinese mantra to beat the heat


As temperatures soar, our columnist takes his cue from premodern Chinese, who used clothing, food and even a Chinese mantra to beat the heat.


Chinese history

Extreme weather

Climate change

Weather

China

Environment

European Union

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Reflections

As Europe bakes in summer heatwave, how people in China kept cool before air conditioning

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As temperatures soar, our columnist takes his cue from premodern Chinese, who used clothing, food and even a Chinese mantra to beat the heat

As temperatures soar, our columnist takes his cue from premodern Chinese, who used clothing, food and even a Chinese mantra to beat the heat