First off, I understand that it is hot and humid - very hot and humid. But as a result, NO ONE walks at more than a snail's pace, if that. The logic is that if you go faster than a snail, you will start to sweat as soon as you stop moving (since the slight breeze you create while you walk is the only thing keeping you from sweating). This is completely true - as soon as I stop walking I'm sweating profusely. Lovely image I know but it's true. It's just that hot, all the time. A lovely breeze appears just before it starts to rain so that's always appreciated except that you now have to walk even faster to get under cover before the sky's let loose!
As many of you may know, it is a family tradition to walk quickly - my mother is of the opinion that if you are walking you should basically be doing it as quickly as possible and that is the way we grew up, constantly yelling to Mom to slow down! My sister and I have both picked up this technique and it has worked out well until moving here. In the States, friends have laughed at the briskness of my walk but I was able to get more things done by just moving quickly! Here, people look at me as if I have two heads as I try to weave through sidewalk traffic hoping to avoid the huge groups of snails everywhere. Of course, I pay for it when I finally arrive at my destination and realize that I'm dripping wet and I look horrendous! Thank goodness I know almost no one here to judge me!
Now this snail's pace on the sidewalks in and of itself might not be such an issue IF the people on said sidewalks had any sense of organization in their walking. For one thing, automobile traffic is on the left here and hence the logic would be that pedestrian traffic would follow the same logic. But the problem lies in the fact that a lot of the residents here have also lived in other countries where people walk on the right hand side. And then there's a large percentage of the population that doesn't care what the proper way to walk is, they just walk straight down the middle of the sidewalk and often in big groups. And these groups never move out of the way when they see people coming the other direction - they just assume that the other person will step off the sidewalk to make room for them.
In the course of walking 1/2 mile to the grocery store this afternoon, only two people I crossed paths with on the sidewalk (meaning they were walking towards me) actually moved over to one side enough to allow me to pass. These are standard width sidewalks so really shouldn't be an issue. I don't care which way they move, I'll adjust accordingly but the others I passed just continued to walk side-by-side and never even moved over slightly to let me pass without hoping off the sidewalk. Luckily I was on a road where there was some grass to one side so that I wasn't jumping into traffic! Most of these people were men and I've learned that many here definitely are of the opinion that they don't need to move over for a woman anyway so I was out of luck.
Of course, my favorite move was right before getting back to our condo when I was run off the road by a Segway (seen several of them around our neighborhood)! He came up behind me as another group was approaching me and decided to just yell for me to move and for the men approaching both of us to move. That time I nearly did end up in the path of an oncoming bus since I rarely have been passed from behind. If I survive walking on these sidewalks without injury during our time in Singapore, I will consider myself lucky! Maybe I will start a business offering Sidewalk Etiquette classes but don't think anyone would sign up.....
No comments:
Post a Comment