Sunday, June 01, 2003
More bad news, hence the lack of posting. It's not that I have nothing to talk about -- there are lots of things, for a change -- but there's no desire thanks to recent events in Australia, where on top of my grandfather's illness, my uncle's baby daughter passed away. It wasn't as sudden as that might imply though, because she was born with a serious illness and wasn't given much hope to survive even a period of weeks. Personally I am somewhat happy to think that despite the adversity she survived for over a year and thus had the chance to experience as much of life as possible, but I can also see how this is harder for the family to take, since they've had that much time to be with her.
To be honest, I haven't taken the news well at all, even though I never did get a chance to see the baby in the flesh. For some reason, it's just hit me a lot harder than my grandfather's illness, even though the consequences of the latter are clear to me. So forgive me for trying to forget everything and taking a more trivial approach to the rest of the post; I really don't want to be depressing.
It has to be said that the weather around here really doesn't help. People complain about the cold but really, it beats the heat. It's a funny thing to say, coming from infinitely-hotter Hong Kong, but I can't stand the heat here. Maybe it's because summer days last from 5am to 9pm. Maybe it's because of the total and utter lack of humidity -- normally a sticky nuisance, but somehow the dry hot air makes me very, very sleepy. The unfortunate caveat is it's virtually impossible to sleep in this heat without air-conditioning. I don't have an air-con. Uh oh.
The other problem with the heat is the bizarre and almost amusing British attitude to it. Every time there's a little bit of heat, everyone dresses and acts as if they're going to the beach. Women bare as much as possible, which usually means "too much" given that like America, there's a bit of an obesity problem here. Men start wearing sandals and only buttoning up their shirts at the bottom. It's exactly the sort of beachware you tend to see foreigners don in the likes of Phuket and the Philippines... except this is the middle of London. The only funny thing about their peculiar dress sense though is the fact that all the flesh-baring clothes tend to reveal and highlight how pasty-white most people are. Again, coming from the tropics, that's an unusual sight.
Perhaps the most bizarre bit though is their fondness for picnicking. Actually, I digress. Although again picnics are not exactly common in Hong Kong -- nobody wants to go to the beach, and though we do have nice country parks, I cannot recall any of my extended family ever even expressing a DESIRE to picnic there -- it's not the actual act of doing so that I find amusing. What I find amusing is WHERE they choose to drop the mat and eat. Even though I find the River Thames by my little town to be stagnant and especially full of flies at summertime... alright, there's a case for setting up there, by the water and with trees, cafes and pubs nearby. Ditto a park, full of lush grass. Just fine. But I really wouldn't expect to see anyone having a picnic in my carpark... and people do, regularly. You see, there's a little grass verge between the actual road and parking slots and where the building is. It's only about three to four metres across, surrounded by cars and enclosed by a building, but people still like to lie there, sun themselves and eat.
I wonder if any of them realise that in addition to the fact that they're sitting in the middle of a carpark... the little bungalow-esque huts scattered about the verge are the apartment's trash collection point.
Posted at 5:28 AM
