Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Think this summer feels hotter than usual?
You are not wrong and you are not alone.
While many are cooling off indoors with the A .C.
on full blast, others are strapping on life jackets and floating down rivers, enjoying this season's popular water activity known as Losers Rafting.
It's lazy, low effort, and perhaps just what we need for surviving a scorching summer.
Tune in for a refreshing take on how a nation learns to live, adapt, and float through extreme summer.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Yang. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yushan in the studio.
First on today's show.
This summer is hot again.
And we're almost getting used to each year being the hottest on record until the next one tops it.
From Asia to Europe, temperatures are smashing records.
Here in China, the heat wave isn't just changing the weather, it's changing lifestyles.
In regions once considered cool retreats, people are scrambling for ACs or air conditioning.
Others are hitting outdoors, taking up river rafting as their new favorite escape.
escape. How hot is the summer and perhaps the world, Yushan?
I mean, wow. Beijing nowadays is receiving almost the same level of humidity as that in southern China, and as someone who's lived here in Beijing for over 20 years, that's not common. And then for a new 2025 report from the World Meteorological Organization, it also indicates that global temperatures are likely likely to remain at or near record highs over the next five years.
And just in the past month, this June, it was reported to be the third warmest June on record globally since weather data collection begun in 1850.
That's according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U .S. I totally agree with you on Beijing.
You said, what, 20 years in the city?
I've been 12 months in the city and even i didn't remember it being this humid uh last year i know it was hot it can get up to what like 35 36 37 maybe even around 38 sometimes in beijing but last summer it didn't feel like it had that humidity but it's definitely here this year and if you've never experienced high heat and high humidity you just stand and sweat you don't even have to do anything thing you don't even have to go anywhere it's just really really hot outside hot here in China and hot here and all around the world and Europe's a good example they just had their fifth warmest June
on record they had an average land temperature of almost 19 degrees Celsius now that might not mean much to you but just know this that's over one degree above the 1991 to 2020 average and beyond Europe as well really significantly warmer than average conditions were also recorded in in much of the United States, northern Canada, it got hotter there too.
And also in this part of the world here in Central Asia.
And in China, over 20 provinces issued high temperature warnings in July.
There were lots of cities across the country, cities in Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, even here in Beijing, up to 40 degrees and sometimes maybe even a little bit hotter.
Yeah, sometimes I almost feel like it's impossible to fall asleep, especially during in nighttime if you don't turn the AC on.
You know on AC there's one mode that you can choose that's called eliminating humidity that's going to dry up suck up all the water vaporized in the air inside your room.
I love that function.
It saved my life up until now ever since the beginning of June I think.
So you mentioned in Europe how hot it's been and also I've seen some records estimations from the Grandtham Institute at Imperial College London that also indicates that this new wave of heat wave that's swept across Europe between June the 23rd and July the 2nd has already led to 2 ,305 deaths in 12 major cities that include Barcelona, Milan, and London.
So over 1 ,500 deaths were directly linked to temperature changes.
That's driven by the current climate change.
So that's how the impact is that the current heat wave has on us just all over the world.
I'm sure there are also similar incidents happening worldwide in other areas as well.
Well, you might wonder, how could this happen, right?
What are individuals doing?
What are the governments doing?
And part of it could be attributed to the fact that some of these places just didn't used to have AC because you didn't need them.
And now you probably do.
And we'll take a look about that.
So to live through this kind of heat, well, air and conditioning seems pretty necessary.
Tell us about the boom of equipping your homes or multiple rooms with air conditioning in China?
Yeah, it's now a full -blown surge, isn't it?
Like Tech Outlet 36KR, it recently reported that air conditioner sales across China shot up by anywhere from 30 % to 50 % year -on -year in June and July this year.
And that's depending on the region.
So Medea, which is one of the country's biggest home appliance brands, it saw the domestic orders spike by 40 % this summer.
And other brands like Haier and Gree, they also stepped up their factory output and logistics to keep up with the rising demand.
And online platforms such as JD .com and Tmall, they're also seeing AC surge traffic that's more than doubling up this year.
That's over 120 % during the hottest weeks.
And one thing that I noticed on social media that's really curious is is that people are not only buying AC for their households, but also for one particular place inside their house, which is the kitchen.
Have you ever thought about it?
Because, well, nowadays in the hot weather, it's super hard for people to cook because of the fiery and also the high temperature when you're processing food.
So now more and more people are paying attention, at least trying to figure out if it's possible to have AC installed in the kitchen.
and some people are still following the traditional ways of just getting an AC and try to combine the tubes and make it work while others are trying to look for just professional ones so there are some brands that's stepping out of the comfort zone and trying to design kitchen specific AC but that's very pricey at the current stage but somehow this is like a new trend discussed on social media on Xiaohongshu, the Chinese Instagram this topic has ranked up nearly 40 million views use and then on douyin the domestic tick tock videos under this hashtag of kitchen um ac it also been it has been viewed
over 270 million times as reported by 36 kr so that's like how we can better our life through ac but through new angles as well specifically in the home for restaurants too that would be very very important right to have uh yeah it's hot in your kitchen in your house, but in restaurants, it would be unbearable sometimes, I would think.
That is true. And I certainly haven't been checking social media as often, or, I suppose, looking at the right places like Yushan has.
In my household, when my dear father slaves away in the kitchen, I mean, hats off to him.
I give him a bear hug every day for doing that for cooking for us and we just do it the primal way we just leave the kitchen door open so then the ac from the living room can just yeah the cool air will go into put a fan nearby so that that flows in there we wouldn't even spend that for him no poor guy no no i'm thinking about it though but the way i look at this is i'm in a way once again kind of shocked by a younger generation of Chinese people.
They're willing to spend and the brands, the manufacturers are innovating to find new growth points, hence the kitchen AC.
Because in my generation, or older generations, as before the millennials, I think having one AC maybe in the living room and one in the bedroom would be pretty common. Yeah.
And then for the really fancy decorations, refurbishments of apartments, you could set up the central AC.
Yeah. I mean, that's fancy, though.
Yeah. And it's expensive.
It's really expensive.
I remember living in apartments where I had a standing air conditioning unit in the corner of the living room.
But to get the air to all the other rooms in the house, I had a series of fans set up, like almost like a pathway, so it could reach into the bedroom because there's no air conditioning in the bedroom, and I didn't want to spend the money for an extra air conditioner.
Every house is different.
But yeah, cooking's more challenging these days.
Also, drying your clothes in this humidity is a lot harder than without the humidity.
Right. Well, then if you live in the southern parts of China, you'll suffer from that a bit more than us in the northern parts of China.
And also in Beijing, we tend to say, oh, it's terrible when you've got the sauna weather.
And that's, you know, when we do.
I think it's pretty self -explanatory a term.
But also just back to, you know, AC consumption.
I remember last year, or maybe the year before, I watched this presentation given by one of the CEOs of the domestic AC manufacturers that's been cited by Yusheng just now.
And then it was really interesting.
That CEO was trying to get the audience pumped and to get more investment.
So he was saying, you know what, you think AC is common in China nowadays?
No, you're wrong. We still have major growth room.
Why? Now Chinese households only have one AC in their homes, and so many households still don't have AC.
So look at Japan, you know, that's a developed, okay, I'm just imitating his presentation.
In Japan, that's a developed economy.
And in their households, they either have central AC, or they have one AC in each room.
So therefore, when China's economy grows, when people's demand for better life enjoyment, then they'll want more ACs.
And that's why you should invest in our company.
Oh, my gosh, I've never wanted to buy an air conditioner more than I do right now.
I'm ready, sign me up.
And immediately I'm thinking, I wonder when China will get to that point.
Also, I hope that we have better technological development than just putting on more ACs.
Just think about how much energy that is consuming.
But now also let's look at what's happening here in China.
And this is being picked up by multiple news outlets this summer that in In the northeastern part of China, this is an area that traditionally the imperial family of the Qing dynasty would go there, not only because that was, you know, sort of their home birthplace where that dynasty spurred from, but it's traditionally a super cool retreat region.
And now this region demands AC.
Tell me more about this.
Yeah, you're describing the northeastern part of China.
China, the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, right?
Because this region is particularly known more for snowy winters than sweatering summers.
Because, yeah, we've heard about the Harbin snow world that's so popular in wintertime.
So we can almost assume that in summertime is cooler than the rest of China, let's say.
But nowadays, in this summer, particularly The temperature in northeast China soared above 35 degrees Celsius in multiple cities that include Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, and also Changchun, which is the capital city of Jilin province.
And this had led air conditioner sales in parts of the northeast China jumped by eight times compared to the same period last year.
So nowadays, local appliance stores, they have already reported that installation wait times has stretched to over two weeks for families to get one AC in their house.
People in the Northeast usually say the natural breeze is our air conditioning, right?
Nature is our air conditioning, but not anymore.
Air conditioning is the air conditioning there.
Some really heartwarming kind of stories came from this as well.
So there's a lot of demand, right, for the installation.
you said it stretches to over two weeks sometimes right whereas typically it might take I don't know delivery so fast installation so fast here in China maybe a couple of days a few days yeah but because there's so many orders then it's taking a lot longer so to meet that demand ac installers from the southern provinces uh that would be for example Guangdong and Jiangsu the ac installers from those regions down south they're traveling up north to help out because there's just yeah just to kind of shorten the installation time because it's so hot and people people need it right so they're actually
going up there to help out and also can i just please quickly point out this is a seasonal business because nobody's gonna want air conditioning in winter time so these manufacturers and brands they're really banking on this season as well.
So I think for the installers, it's probably worth the extra overtime, because you want to really make your money when it's the time, right?
And now it is. Yeah.
And also, there's another silver lining.
In China, the AC air conditioning industry is innovating, and they're trying their best to make the sector a bit greener.
I mean it's hard it's easier said than done in so many ways even though we have different levels of say labeling of how much energy a certain home appliance will cost there's level one to five I remember so usually when people are shopping at least in my family's case we try to go for those who's labeled under three so the one two three that's our more power saving then let's go for for those options.
So with those options open for people nowadays, I think, at least from our perspective, it's something that we can do.
But also here on the national, say, initiative that's from Bloomberg report, China in general is also working hard to keep the AC on, to keep people's AC on at home through this scorching summer.
And one thing that's really helping is a trade -in program that's let millions of households upgrade to more energy efficient air conditioners.
We've talked about the trade -in program for many times on Roundtable as well, but we didn't really touch upon AC in particular.
And this upgrade together could actually cut residential electricity use by about 4 .1 % this summer.
And that's enough power that's safe to run entire country of Iceland land for a whole year that's a fun comparison yeah that's the scope of how we are really trying to save energy yeah it's a good it's a good thing i was reading about it as well the air conditioners that they're making these days are just so much better for the environment than the air conditioners of the past so yeah if people are in need of air conditioning and they're trading in their older models that maybe wouldn't have been so great for the planet for ones that have a reduced carbon footprint that's a good thing yeah it's
definitely a good thing and also, you know, looking for renewable energy to power the grid, you know, that good stuff that we've talked about in the past as well, I think it's relevant here.
And while air conditioning offers relief indoors, a lot of families and weekend travelers are turning to rafting.
In Chinese, it's called piaoliu, basically riding down a river in an inflatable boat, sometimes Sometimes calm and scenic, other times fast and bumpy, depending on the water.
How popular is rafting in China nowadays?
I'm not sure if you guys have tried that before, but I tried it once when I was little and it scared me up.
Like it was very challenging for people who's not used to riding on an inflated little, I don't know, boat.
How old were you at the time?
Maybe in primary school back, like 10 year old.
okay was it like white water rafting like the the semi -scary type i'm not even sure it must have been semi -scary it's probably just an usual rafting experience but yeah for kids was it out in the wild yes out in the wild you see mountains on the side not in a theme park right and nowadays we see on meituan which is china's largest local service app that's also known as China's Yelp or Groupon, searches for outdoor rafting searched by over 170 % since this May.
And also Ctrip, which is a leading travel booking platform, also reported that rafting is a major contributor to summer tourism growth.
And that's according to the official website of the city of Hangzhou in eastern China.
So people are loving it.
Yeah, a lot of people are going.
There's a rafting site in Hunan province and they've been pulling 5 ,000 visitors a day, 10 ,000 on weekends.
Must be really busy, right?
And they're expecting 300 ,000 total visitors this summer.
Compared to last summer, that's an increase of 55%.
So it's something that people are aware of now and they're getting out there and they're doing it.
And it's the big sites, but it's the smaller scenic sites too in the Northwest that are also taking advantage of it.
Those locations are where rafting was maybe not even a thought, right?
People wouldn't even consider doing it.
But they've been seeing traffic spikes, you know, not as big an increase, not up to 55%, but almost 10%, on the way to 10 % increases in those regions.
What's wrong with just swimming?
People have to raft. Well, did you call it in the beginning?
I love that term, loser rafting.
Oh, call me a loser and sign me up for that.
The loser rafting is kind of just the chilled out version, right?
You're not screaming down the whitewater rapids of a river.
This isn't for adventurous.
This is just for people.
Like at a theme park.
You mentioned at a theme park, right?
Where you sit on a tube.
Just kind of like slowly meander your way.
This is great. And you can swim, right?
When you do that type of thing.
Because the water is not really dangerous in those spots.
not not compared to the white water spot so yeah you can fall off your tube and go for a little swim why not yeah for that loser um style of rafting i've also seen pictures of people not moving at all just in the still water with their life jacket on yeah and just floating on water not doing anything at all some people are reading yeah what are you reading at that moment in your your life like people are just trying to be like I'm too tired to fight the current let's just enjoy the peaceful time so so that's why it's also called the couch potato style rafting and I love it it's um attracting uh
so nearly 400 ,000 yuan in one day by now and that's roughly 55 ,000 US dollars and the ride is so calm it's safe even when you're floating down the stream it's not much like the traditional rafting but more like just simply floating and it's perfect for young visitors who want to float and relax rather than chase thrills and get excited yeah i'm recalling my very challenging memory of just being told that it's fun but it turns out to be thrilling and that's an example from anji city zhejiang province in southern china where it's a region known to have lots of entrepreneurs and i think this is probably
one new business uh proposition for lots of operators or potential operators out there and here's another one this i have not heard of before night rafting with with some light shows that's gaining some traction as of late as well yeah some sites so what they're doing is they're transforming these short rafting roots into these immersive night experiences they've got lights shows they've got music playing so there it's not so much about the rafting experience or or about the water even it's just more about the atmosphere that they can create wow it sounds like what you can get from entertainment
like theme parks like in universal studio there's this kung fu panda themed kind of of a little ride that you can be on a boat and there's lightings and everything and then here in beijing there's also one other example the ping in pinggu district um they also build the city's first day and nighttime rafting route that's opened just this summer it features it features flower lit tunnels and also laser shows and music and i saw pictures of it too is like one person on each inflatable rafts and it's like just so peaceful as it seems like people adults and children they're all on the raft and just
flowing down and some news also said that this is bringing in more income for local villagers as well because they run homestays during the summertime and if people want to do the night entertainment over there then they probably have to stay in for the night as well so that's where you know this is benefiting local people Yeah, the local economy, indeed.
Well, besides, you know, it's really hot and people don't mind getting a little wet and cool, that kind of thing.
Why do you think rafting is all popular?
Well, in recent years, but this year seems to be, oh, the go -to, must -do thing for a lot of these scenic spots.
First of all, China here, we have the geography for it because many parts of China, especially in the southwest and central and eastern regions, we are rich in rivers and mountains, streams and natural valleys.
So all of these, they create ideal conditions for rafting routes to be designed from fast moving rapids to just simply gentle, family friendly waters.
So now people are getting more aware of how to better utilize these natural resources and just reflect on it, design some routes for it, and just attract people to come by and spend their weekend here.
It's also very social media friendly, isn't it?
You can get lots and lots of great content, photos and videos or what have you, of your rafting experience, albeit the lazy rafting or the exciting adventurous style.
But people can go there and if they're really into their social medias, then that's a great spot to come up with some content.
I think that's probably one of the reasons behind the popularity, too, not just the heat.
Also, well, that's a great idea.
And I'm just going to leap off that.
The operators should have a professional photographer for because usually these rafting activities is usually our group activities.
activities um i know that some companies actually do this for their yuan jian their what do you call it group group outings yeah group outings you know to boost our commodore camaraderie let's go rafting and then this whole team just you know you're working on one project and everybody hates each other and then you go rafting oh we have each other's back don't let him fall off the raft or whatever it is and then all of a sudden we're all like a big family again and then your boss says now increased sales by six percent next quarter yeah i wish i fell off that rafter that boat um no um so you can't
have that photographer taking pictures because that can also go to uh the pictures and the videos could go to your social media if you because you you know if you're doing the selfie you look terrible no but those photos are sometimes terrible as well where was i i think I think I was at Disney World or somewhere in the United States.
And they have a ride where you like go down in this log kind of, I don't know what it is, down this waterfall thing.
And there's a camera so that when you start your descent on the waterfall, it takes a shot of you.
And then when you get off the ride, like all the pictures are there, you know, for sale so that you can buy them.
I looked like, you know, and I was like 21, right?
Looking good. You want to be cool and tough.
i don't care i'm not scared of anything there i was the most terrified look on my face on the planet i was like can you take that i asked the photographer i said get that down please um so not all the pictures are insta worthy i suppose yeah hopefully well if they took a few then you could choose the best one out of it who knows yeah just a thought and then you know this is definitely the fun side of things but like yushan mentioned from the uh earlier on in the the discussion this can be really scary it's potentially dangerous especially when you're rafting you're going down a river down a waterfall
or you know these natural rivers they're yeah so what about the safety aspect of things um are the safety measures precautions yeah I mean they absolutely should be yeah you're right it's thrilling it's exciting but it's also potentially dangerous which is probably part of the draw for some people as well but please do stick to licensed licensed professional rafting sites, respect the weather warnings, wear your life jacket and not just wear it, but wear it properly, right?
And just do all the things that you need to do to make sure you're as safe as you possibly can be.
And also plan your trip ahead because sometimes weather can really jeopardize not only your trip, but also the safety of the spot that you're visiting.
For example, one operator in central China China said that their rafting visitor number dropped by 20 % this year, all because of frequent summer rain.
So in rafting alone, the increase of raining, the amount of rain can be causing or at least elevating the risk for flash or floods that occurs in those regions.
So, yeah, pay attention.
Yes, with the rising temperatures in certain places, increasing rain in maybe similar places or other, you know, elsewhere, and erratic weather such as flooding and drought, we've seen them in China this year in the weirdest times of the year.
are nature pushing back basically harder each year we see in terms of the weather and climate how do we rethink about what it means to survive actually strike that live well in today's world wow from a personal point of view i'll start by suggesting that turn your ac up to 26 degrees Celsius oh you know about that I was going to bring that up not not any lower because yeah I think I read about it somewhere in previous years that it's recommended the ideal temperature for your AC is 26 degrees Celsius because that's where you can get the most comfortable state temperature inside your room and also manage
to have the more power efficient out of the home appliance that and it saves you a little bit of money as well I remember I learned about this from my friend's wife, the 26 degree magic number, but yeah, that's a great tip.
Yeah, I think learning to survive without pushing the planet past its limits is what we all should think about.
What we do today, how we cool, how we travel, how we build will shape the kind of summers future generations inherit.
