Shopping in Singapore

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 90, 14 March 1941, Page 5

Shopping in Singapore

INGAPORE would be an attractive place, if it wasn’t for the heat. At least, to my mind. But it is so near the Equator that it has, you might say, only two seasons; it is either hot and wet, or hot and dry. The variation in the length of daylight is quite insignificant. Practically the whole year round, the sun sets about six o'clock, and as in all tropical places, darkness shuts down almost immediately. The further you get from the Equator the longer the twilight. That is why Ditnedin has a much longer twilight than Auckland. About fifteen minutes after the sun has gone down in Singapore, it is pitch dark. So, all

the year round, you have a long hot dark evening to face. To us, the joy.of a warm, summer evening is that we can enjoy it out of doors. In Singapore, there is no daylight left after about a quarter past six. Life in tropical countries is conditioned by the climate. In Singapore, the white residents, the European women, do most of their shopping early in the morning, pro-

bably between 8 and 9. Certainly before ten. After that, the heat is far too exhausting to be out of doors. Though you may find a few of them sitting round long, cool drinks in a club or hotel lounge at eleven in the morning, after their morning’s shopping. But the majority are home by that time. And they always travel by car or rickshaw; they seld6m walk anywhere. There are rows of rickshaws drawn up all along the streets, and you hop into one for even the shortest distance.-(" Ships and Shoes and Sealing-wax," by Nelle Scanlan, 2YA, February 21.)