Tropical Storm Talim has been closing in on the Pearl River Delta for the past 24 hours and it seems to have sucked all the air south and out of the suburbs of Dongguan.
The weather is stifling, every breath comes laboured and even a short walk leaves you dank and clammy with sweat. The smart place to be is inside but passion does funny things to common sense, especially when it comes to sport. We are sitting on the sidelines of a soccer pitch inside the Guangdong Zhujiang Technical School and watching a bunch of young teenagers take to a game that up until three months ago was unheard of around here, surrounded as we are by the factories and by southern China's relentless urban sprawl. Australian Rules football might belong half a world away but it has these kids in its spell.
'It's an exciting game,' says 18-year-old Wu Maoxue. 'I've played soccer before but this game is more dangerous. You have to tackle and jump really high. None of us knew anything about the game before, but we are learning fast.'
Wu is one of 25 students who have taken in the advice dished out by Confucius centuries ago and now emblazoned high on a nearby school wall - 'I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand' - and have thrown themselves full tilt into an Aussie Rules programme run by Macau-based, Melbourne-born Russell Egan and supported by the school and a few sponsors.
With the help of the likes of physical education teacher Feng Miao and the backing of the school's chairman and president, Zhang Jiangfeng, the group is training up to five times a week, beginning with the basics and hopefully working their way up to competitive games in the near future.
Today they've been put through a series of speed and skill drills and have just finished a game restricted to handball rather than kicking, due to the limited space available. But they've gone at it like the game has long been in their blood.
It's a labour of love for Egan, whose background in Australia was in vocational studies while he was also involved in organising Aussie Rules games for indigenous players. He's made instant believers out of the students here, drawn from the poorer villages of Guangdong.
