Why Must Be So Cold? / 为什么这么冷？

If you come to Singapore, you will find lots of places are extremely cold. What? I thought Singapore was a tropical country? How come it's so cold? Yea, lots of places, for eg, hotels, restaurants, shopping centres, schools, offices and so on. You will feel very uncomfortable sometimes. There was a newspaper report of one restaurant being so cold, diners could not stand it, so the waitors and waitresses gave them shawls to wrap arround their shoulders. Is this due to the cold weather? Absolutely not. It's due to the technology -- air conditioners. In Singapore, people like to set the temperature at a very low level. To me, I feel the only reason is to show off. You see, we are rich enough to enjoy this technology. We are used to it, because since we were born, the technology has been affordable enough to maintain a cool temperature. Those who feel uncomfortable dare not make noise for fear of being made to look foolish and being laughed at. "How come? You can not afford the aircon? That's why you are not used to it?" So they have to pretend to be "highclass". For me, it's absolutely silly. Why consume so much of energy to make yourself uncomfortable? Besides, aircon is very bad to health. It will make your skin dry. As a result, you will develop more wrinkles and get old faster. It's one of the main causes of rheumatism. It will worsen the environmental problem. In fact, it's not at all high class to set the temperature so low. It simply shows that you are a frog in a well-- never getting a chance to experience the outside world, never able to see how people from non-tropical weather live. My friends from France and Japan always complain of the strong aircon here. One of the Japanese men, not able to handle the temperature in the office, bought a stove from Japan to keep himself warm. Doesn't that sound ridiculous to you?

在新加坡，很多地方多冷得令人无法忍受。“有没有搞错？新加坡不是热带国家么？”当然不是自然冷啦，是冷气开的超足造成的。很多地方例如酒店，商场，饭店，学校，办公室均其冷无比。曾有一次报纸报道某餐厅的顾客是在冷得受不了，无奈餐厅只能每人发一条披肩给他们‘御寒’。你说着荒不荒唐。那到底为什么新加坡人喜欢把冷气体调到这样低呢？依我看，这无非是好炫耀而已。他们想给人一种印象他们出身于富人之家，自小条件优越，能够过着夏冬颠倒的生活，那些怕冷得也只能静静不出声，生怕别人嘲笑：“你自小家里就没有冷气的么？所以不习惯？”因此上也只能假装喜欢的样子。在我看来，这简直是愚蠢，冷气其实对身体并不利，它使得皮肤干燥，从而加速皱纹的产生和加速老化的过程，而且它也是造成风湿病的最主要罪魁之一；而且对环境的伤害极大。上述炫耀者其实只是井底之蛙而已，如果他们有机会走出去看一看就会发现发达国家的冷气使用量其实很小，我的一位法国朋友家里根本没有冷气，几位日本朋友也很少使用冷气，他们都抱怨新加坡太冷了。一位日本男士无法忍受办公室的‘严寒’，自己从日本买了一支暖炉保暖，你说荒唐不荒唐？