May Day
Friday, May 02, 2008
May Day
It's a May day, it is the first day of May. As a tradition, the emergency alarm system mounted on top of selected apartments all around the island blared out the sound of church bells at exactly twelve noon on the first day of every month. When I found out about it two years ago, it effectively solved the mystery of the invisible church that has been a running joke around the dinner table in my family for years. The answer to the mystery, however, is much less exciting and electrifying, I'm afraid. Not only is today the first day of the month of May, it is also Labor Day - a day for the laborers to put down their labors and to be rid of their everyday obligations, at least that is the case for some people. That is not the case for those attendants at the malls though, not for those dolled up ladies at the cosmetics counter or the waitresses at the restaurants. These places are working just as hard as the other 364 days of the year, simply because you'd be called an idiot for closing your shops today, a public holiday. Labor day does not exist for people like them, the business-minded people with nothing but the dollar signs in their eyes and minds. It all sounds like a grand plan, shops opening up their front doors in the morning, with the people working there waiting in anticipation for the public holiday crowd to come flooding in. But that probably won't be the case, in fact that probably wasn't the case this morning when they started work. That is because, it is just too damn hot these days for a normal human being to be doing anything more than nothing.
It's a May day, it is the first day of May. As a tradition, the emergency alarm system mounted on top of selected apartments all around the island blared out the sound of church bells at exactly twelve noon on the first day of every month. When I found out about it two years ago, it effectively solved the mystery of the invisible church that has been a running joke around the dinner table in my family for years. The answer to the mystery, however, is much less exciting and electrifying, I'm afraid. Not only is today the first day of the month of May, it is also Labor Day - a day for the laborers to put down their labors and to be rid of their everyday obligations, at least that is the case for some people. That is not the case for those attendants at the malls though, not for those dolled up ladies at the cosmetics counter or the waitresses at the restaurants. These places are working just as hard as the other 364 days of the year, simply because you'd be called an idiot for closing your shops today, a public holiday. Labor day does not exist for people like them, the business-minded people with nothing but the dollar signs in their eyes and minds. It all sounds like a grand plan, shops opening up their front doors in the morning, with the people working there waiting in anticipation for the public holiday crowd to come flooding in. But that probably won't be the case, in fact that probably wasn't the case this morning when they started work. That is because, it is just too damn hot these days for a normal human being to be doing anything more than nothing.
Just look out of your bedroom window at two in the afternoon, that is the kind of heat some people work under these days. It is hot enough to fry a fish on top of your car, hot enough to start a fire if you rub your hands together under the sun. It is not helped by the fact that the humidity in Singapore is so high all the time, it is possible to drown someone in the puddle of sweat around you if you remain in situ for a long enough time. Nobody is insane enough to leave their homes for shopping sprees on Orchard Road these days, we'd rather stay at home and do absolutely nothing, which is already tiring and draining by itself. I, for one, have elected to stay at home and read a good book, watch a good movie, eat a good snack, all in a perfectly air-conditioned bedroom for the most part of the holidays. I understand that people have made plans to hang out, to party their heads off, to travel all the way up to Kuala Lumpur for their shopping sprees, nothing wrong with those. But the thought of squeezing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of hot sweaty strangers under the baking hot sun, the thought of squeezing myself into a tiny car for a six hour long drive - no thanks.
I feel bad for the air-conditioning, hanging outside of the bedroom window like that. Exposed to the sun for the entire day, I don't suppose it'd feel very good if it has any human-like emotions whatsoever. That is also probably why at 23 degrees on the remote control, the room still feels like the kitchen of a fast food joint, and I am the hamburger meat being fried in the pan. Heat screws everything up, even the color of the curtains have changed drastically over the years, and it is lucky that my mother has escaped to Taiwan in the later days of April to attend to my father, the man with the badly sprained leg. Apparently, my father suddenly grew a health conscience and decided that jogging on the treadmill would do him good. But after years of eating and drinking and no exercising, the man has forgotten how to jog in the right manner and has thus, sprained his leg over the weekend and is in need of my mother's tender loving care. My mother is probably enjoying the fine weather in Taiwan right now with my father, who has apparently gotten better over the past few days, and my sister and I are still stuck in this giant oven and nowhere else to go. I am contented in my bedroom of course, but the urge to go out inside of me cannot be tamed.
Speaking of jogging on the treadmill, there was a man I saw on the streets today jogging at four in the afternoon, a deranged man with not a lot of sense in him I suppose. The sun was raging hot back then, pouring its heat upon earth as if we have insulted its mother eons ago. And there he was, running down the sidewalk as if he was undaunted by the heat. It was probably a protest on his part against the forces of nature, secretly cursing into the cloudless skies at the sun. He slowly jogged pass the entrance to my estate, then slowly down the road and towards the junction before disappearing around the bend, and I wondered to myself if he made it back home. Anybody would have died out there in the heat, anybody would have melted into the pavement and disappeared forever. I hate the weather, I'd rather it rain all day like it did in the early days of January. January brings along with it the chills of a tropical winter, the nostalgia and the melancholia, how poetic. May just brings along with it words like frustration, anger, annoyance, vexation, exasperation, aggravation, aggression, irritation, fury, wrath and rage. That is probably why they yell "May Day" into microphones when they are stranded out at sea or when a plane is about to crash land in the mountains. In another words, they are probably saying "We are feeling like a hot day in May, we are f--ked!"
I saw this invention by some crazy Japanese scientist the other day, and he has invented a coat equipped with air-conditioning. Some might call it a crazy and redundant invention, but I say this man is not only a brilliant man, he is also a man that has experienced a May day in Singapore. In May, Singapore is not a place for humans to be at, you want to be as far away from this place as possible. It is true that people become more expressive as the temperatures get higher, statistically speaking. Tempers are expected to flare, vulgarities being scolded on the streets because people just tend to be so easily ticked in the days of May, unlike the eskimos living in the Arctics. You are not going to hear them marching onto the streets to protest for some humanity rights, since they are cold as frozen beef for the most part of the year anyway. Anyway, I need that air-conditioning coat right now, I think everybody needs one in their closets for times like these. It is way too unbearable, I can feel the heat crawling into my skin. Any activities in the coming days that does not involve an indoor location with air-conditioning is going to be rejected by me, and don't call me spoilt on that one - you know you hate the heat too.
You can try this at home, it is only mildly life-threatening, I promise you. Sit at your computer table right now, turn off your air-conditioning, your electric fan, turn off your ceiling fan and stop fanning yourself with this morning's newspaper. Close the window, but allow the sunlight to shine into your room for a minute, then go ahead and close your bedroom door and allow yourself to incubate in this room for ten minutes. Picture the perspiration at the back of your knees, in your inner thighs, in your underwear, between your butt cheeks, down your back, around your neck, in your hair, under your armpits, down your chests, around your crotch, on your upper lip, everywhere. Then remind yourself of this primary school science class fact about our human body while you are at it: 70% of our perspiration has the same compositions as our urine. Technically, we are pissing all over ourselves, and such a thing can only happen in such a hot, hot country. The arctic people probably don't know much about perspiration, imagine their faces when they come to the tropics. They'd probably look at the water seeping out of their skins and think that they are melting like their igloos in summer.
I hate May, and I hate the coming months. I cannot wait for October to come, because October is, well, October. Just put me out of this misery, or put me in a sensory-deprivation tank for five months straight. If I am forced to step out of that front door for more than fifteen minutes again, I am going to scream. In fact, I am screaming right now as I am typing this very sentence, you probably can't hear it from where you are but, it's the same as the scream at the back of your head. This weather sucks, this time of the year sucks, everything about this page on the calendar sucks. Well, not the times I have been spending at home though, without my parents and a lot of free time to myself on the bed and in front of the computer. I am at home too often for my own good, I am probably going to die here sooner or later as well. Still, better to die from laziness than heat-exhaustion I always say, and that my friend is the lesson of the day.
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on Friday, May 02, 2008 at 12:38 AM.
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8:06 AM
yes! October ~ looking forward to October!