No more sweating please, I've had enough

In this post, I want to talk about my relationship with sweat and why I hate hot weather so much. Now I always complain about the weather whenever I am in a hot country like Singapore - but trust me, I hated the weather as much when I was in places like Oman, Greece, Sri Lanka and Tunisia when it did get hideously hot as well. Sweating is one of the most common, natural bodily functions that we have no control over - our bodies produce sweat in a bid to cool our bodies down, the evaporation of the water from our skin has a cooling effect, though the effect is so subtle that we barely notice it. No, in this modern age, we demand immediate cooling like rushing into a room with powerful air-conditioning, having a shower or having a cold drink. I find the sweat just an annoyance really, because it makes me feel sticky and unclean. Did you know that adults can sweat up to 2–4 liters per hour or 10–14 liters per day? Yucks.

Having grown up in Singapore, one's social status is often reflected by one's ability to avoid sweat - rich people with good jobs would have the luxury of air-conditioning both at work and at home, so they will rarely ever perspire whilst air-conditioning is a luxury that poorer people can ill afford. Think about it - a bowl of noodles at a hawker center normally costs around S$3 to S$4 - whilst in a food court with air-conditioning, that normally costs S$5 to S$6. I was shocked when the hawker asked me for S$8.50 for a laksa at the Food Republic at Vivo City (I said no and paid S$5.20 for my meal from another stall) - such is the premium one has to pay to enjoy the comforts of air-conditioning in a very hot and humid country like Singapore and many people gladly pay it.

Ironically as a child, I don't think sweating bothered me that much. I remember being a very active child in primary school, we were running around the school yard, playing games like 'catching' and 'zero-point', climbing trees, getting up to all kinds of mischief and yes, in that process, we would often end up drenched in sweat but hey, we're talking about the 1980s here and we weren't that used to air-conditioning in those days yet. I also did a lot of sports then and I just accepted that sweating was all a part of doing sports - I didn't complain, I did however, make sure I always showered after sports. I can thank my two older sisters for that obsession with cleanliness and hygiene. I hated the smell of sweat. There was however, one period in my life that really made me really hate the concept of sweating.

I'd rather be cold than hot.

Yup, it was during my national service (NS) - I don't think I will ever sweat that much in my life ever again. It was not so much the hardship per se or the sweating, but I got increasingly disillusioned with the people around me, with the whole system. So many of the guys talked about scoring a job in a air-conditioned office and doing as little as the ultimate goal during NS. I began to associate my negative feelings of NS with sweating and avoiding sweat became an obsession of mine in those days - no I didn't end up working in an air-conditioned office, but I realized that if I kept out of the sun and moved as little as possible, I was able to resist breaking out into a sweat most of the time. My British friends are still amazed at just how little I sweat even on hot summer days, I told them that I have trained myself to perspire a lot less than most people as I found it both unhygienic and undignified.

The worst part about NS was the bad smell - everyone stank, it didn't matter how much deodorant you sprayed on, everyone stank so bad. It was the smell of sweat stained clothes, men who had been in the sun, sweating profusely for hours. That old, stale sweat produced such a rank smell and I was amazed at how we all got so used to it as everyone stank the same way. Unfortunately, any concept of hygiene or cleanliness went out of the window, a shower was such a luxury because you got to feel clean once again for a while, until you started sweating again - I fought a losing battle against sweating everyday. Even now, sitting here in my living room in London, I can still remember that horrible smell and just the memory of it after all these years is enough to make me gag and nearly vomit - that's how gross it is.

I've had enough sweating to last me a lifetime, thank you.

Mind you, the last time I felt that was when I was backpacking across Sri Lanka. I was at the Goods Shed bus station at Kandy, it was about 33 degrees. We were waiting for the next bus to take us to Nuwara Eliya and that's a pretty long journey: so what you do is get on the bus the moment it is available and hope you can get a seat - you don't want to stand on a very long journey. The bus filled up very quickly and I was lucky enough to get a seat but the driver was no where to be found. For about 30 minutes, we waited in the bus, under the hot sun and everyone in that bus was drenched with sweat. Needless to say, everyone stank so bad, including myself. The air was still and I was inhaling a mix of exhaust fumes and stench of Sri Lanka's sweatiest men. That was when I was thinking, what the hell am I doing in a place like Sri Lanka, given my aversion to sweating? I should stick to holidays in places like Finland or Iceland where they have very, very cold winters. Yes, I should go to Finland in January instead.

Having spent nearly 20 years in Europe, I have gotten used to not sweating much at all. Our British summers are very mild and temperatures rarely exceed 25 degrees, that means we do not get warm enough to sweat and even when we do (say after sports - I do sweat when I go skiing even when it is way below zero), we cool down very quickly. There is no need for air-conditioning at all and we have heaters instead to keep warm during winter. The much lower humidity means that in this dry heat, you're less likely to sweat too. In fact, some Europeans miss sweating so much that the Finnish have created the sauna just to enjoy sweating: I guess when it is -20 degrees outside, then sweating might be a pleasurable sensation you do miss and crave. I don't understand why people like saunas, they hold no appeal for me at all, mainly because I have this very negative attitude about sweating. They should invent a cold room, chilled down to -20 degrees for people in Singapore who are totally sick and tired of sweating in the relentless tropical heat.

One of the first things I noticed when I first moved to France in 1997 was that I no longer sweated when I went on long walks - then I started jogging and still, I barely sweated at all as it was cold. In Singapore, jogging often involved getting drenched in sweat (whilst breathing the hot, muggy, hazy air) - it was far more fun jogging in France than in Singapore. In fact, any kind of sporting activity became so much more enjoyable without a excessive sweating that I experienced in Singapore. So whilst I was discovering the joys of living in a cooler climate, my parents were and always had been paranoid about cold weather. They just don't get it: if the weather is cold, all you have to do is put on some winter clothing and you won't feel cold. But if the weather is hot, without air-conditioning, well you just have to suffer. I certainly know which I prefer. Well, my readers will know that I am the ultimate passive-aggressive bitch when it comes to my parents. So the more my parents whinged about the cold, the more I wanted to whinge about the hot weather. I guess subconsciously, I wanted to show them, "hey I am nothing like you, you hate the cold, so I am going to do the complete opposite and hate the heat. I hope that sends you a message." I don't know if my parents ever got that message, but for better or for worse, I have spent so many years telling myself that I hate the heat that I have convinced myself that hot weather is bad and cold weather is good that I totally believe it now.

I have been in Europe so long now that I have developed certain habits in terms of my dress sense - I like dressing up very much and it is just not possible to do so in Singapore's extremely hot and sticky weather. When I am in Singapore, I just default to wearing shorts and T-shirt because I'm just going to end up sweating despite my best efforts, so why bother dressing nicely? In fact I am quite puzzle why people living in the tropics are not dressing with lighter fabrics. I remember when I was in Brunei, I saw this Muslim lady wear a thick woolen sweater when it was 33 degrees. I get it, she's a Muslim and wanted to cover her arms - but surely there must be manufacturers of clothing made of much lighter fabrics which will allow her to cover up without overheating her? The sweater she was wearing was clearly designed for much colder climates - so was that the only long sleeved top she could wear that day?

Brunei was very, very hot.

So there you go, that's my rambling post on the topic of sweating and why I hate it. What is your relationship with sweating? Does sweating bother you? Leave a message and let's talk about sweating. Many thanks for reading.