The temperature in Kowloon Financial's head office had risen steadily through the day, from a comfortable twenty degrees at opening to its current sweat-inducing thirty degrees. James would have opened the window to create a draft, but with the temperature outside several degrees higher than this, and not even the least wind blowing in off the bay, it seemed that the only thing to do was suffer through this heatwave, or find whoever was responsible for fixing the air conditioner.

Learning Cantonese? Our lesson today is based on a truism that anyone who has worked in a major office should recognize: that sometimes it isn't the heat that's bothering you so much as your co-workers.