u need weather data in china or nevermind? u can use soap and get weather data from
http://www.xmethods.com/ve2/ViewListing.po?key=uuid:A8847507-255F-0E18-D814-78D18E6C32F6. easy, maybe one hour code?
this is his thesis design, not a real product. so he can not spend too much time on reading evolution code in order to implement such a small function.
for simple way, install a kylix, import that wsdl, generate code, should less than one hour.