Winter in the City

Although the temperature gets a bit lower, and the sky gets a little hazier from pollution, winter in Kaohsiung is more an idea than a season. And the people here certainly try to live up to that idea - on the streets and sidewalks people are bundled tightly in scarves and down jackets and acting as though the island isn't tropical. I've donned a jacket a few times myself, but more often than not it's for riding on my scooter since windchill is a vicious thing when there's no windshield or heater to protect you.

The most visible natural sign that it's winter is the haze that's settled over the city. The last rains for the year are over, and the dust and pollution from the streets have risen into the air to wait for the February rains to wash them out again. Mountains in the distance and skyscrapers nearby are nearly invisible, washed out by the grey that's been creeping higher and higher from the horizon over the past few weeks.

Every store is decked out in sequins and holly, and in the past few days it seems like every coffeeshop I find (and I have the supernatural power to find them anywhere) is playing Christmas-y pop music. I even hung around one shop after finishing my cup just so I could listen to all of "I'll be Home for Christmas." Even the cram school I work for has started to hang up fake pine boughs and cover walls in construction paper to make the main office look like a giant gingerbread house. Since few of the kids actually know anything about the holiday, I'm wondering if I can riff off the Hansel and Gretel story and tell them that Mrs. Claus puts children who scream in class into pressure cookers to render them down for candycanes.