I find myself living in a warped parallel reality. It is amazing how the mind can be tricked and conned if you put your thinking into second place.
For the last month or two the shops in Singapore have been undergoing the "end of season" sales and bringing out the "new seasons" clothes. The new season being winter. In a country where the average temperature doesn't move much out of the zone of 28-32 degrees we're being told we're going into winter. Which I thought was pretty stupid of itself, not to mention wasteful on the part of retailers - after all who the heck is going to buy coats and woollies in this place? Then my thoughts go to the long tail of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Who is making the buying and display decisions.
And then yesterday, after 2 weeks in the real autumn of Europe I wake at the usual 5:45 to get the kids to the reservoir for their 6:45 cross country run, and I realize getting into my car that it's light. I check my watch, has it stopped? Am I incredibly late? It doesn't get to be light until 7:15 or so and it's only 6:30.
And I realize damnit we're south of the equator. It's spring going on for summer and NOT Autumn going on for winter.
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7 comments:
It's a con all the way around. Starting the winter season now means that you can justify all those fur coats you bought. I recall during my first year in HK, going jogging on the Peak and staring in horror at all the women in full length furs who were moving at a snail's pace to avoid overheating while I was sweating buckets in my t-shirt.
Hi gweipo --
I wonder: does a significant percentage of Singaporeans go off on holiday around November-December-January-February to colder places such as the UK and/or Japan?
If so, that might explain the winter sale phenomenon you've observed! But if not... hmmmm! ;b
YTSL to be honest I don't know. As much as I love my kids school here, not being in a 'local' system means I feel totally out of the loop from normal people. I doubt that many could afford such a holiday, at least not enough to justify EVERY shop stocking a winter line - maybe enough for a few speciality stores.
Actually, SIN city is 1 degree 14 minutes north of the Equator. As for experiencing winter there, you don't have to go to the ice-skating rink: just step into an Orchard Road shopping mall (granted, the ones in HK are even more frigid :-)
so why is it light for longer? I know you're right Gabi, I checked, but it's not making physical sense to my senses.
Ha! I've been trying to convince my mother to go with my dad to Singapore, since he really wants to visit. My mom keeps complaining that it will be "too hot," which is an interesting comment from someone who grew up in Hong Kong.
Anyway, I tried convincing her by saying "But Mom... It's getting to be WINTER now." Guess I was confused, too.
architart -- I remember seeing one of my richer aunts wearing fur when I was a little kid in the 80s. It was so strange to me, because I grew up in genuinely cold places -- Canada and New England -- and the down-to-earth people there never wore fur. So what was this woman doing in a long mink on a tropical island?
At Elements mall in West Kowloon, which is getting posher all the time, a Sorel store is opening. Sorel is a brand of Canadian winter boot -- the double-insulated, fur-lined kind you use if you do serious outdoor sport in, say, Alberta. I lived in Montreal, where the wind-chill factor drops to 40 below, and I never even had Sorel boots. God knows why people would need them in a place that never comes close to freezing.
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