Perspectives

I'm totally convinced that our socio-cultural background largely determine the way we look at the world. Wow, what a serious statement to make, you might say:-) But here goes an interesting story from my friend Janice.

Janice attended a workshop about coping with the demands of postgrad studies recently. The presenter was a British professor and she started by asking the participants what made them sign-up for the workshop. 'What problems are you having right now?' she asked them. Janice didn't have a problem at all - she just wanted to know some techniques how she could cope better with the demands of postgrad work:-)

Near the end of the workshop, the presenter gave interesting suggestions for each of the participants. 'Hey Janice, you might want to buy a sun lamp if you miss the sunshine from your country,' she told my friend. By the way, Janice is Asian just like me. She thought that the professor may have had the idea that the British gloomy weather must be making her depressed! And then to another female participant, 'Why not take a trip to the Canary Islands?' It's a great place to spend your Christmas break.'



The Stonehenge against a gloomy December sky.


Janice and I were both almost down to our knees laughing when we met after her workshop. 'Why am I going to need a sun lamp?' she asked, her eyes almost filled with tears as she laughed. We found the whole idea of getting a sun lamp to ease depression totally ridiculous! Or so we thought.

Back in my flat, I shared Janice's little story with my young male British flatmate. I was relating this story to him in an amused way but he looked serious the whole time. Hmm, puzzling. And then he said, 'But there are people who do get depressed because of lack of sunlight.' He then said 'X (I'm not sure anymore) percent of the UK population are affected by seasonal affective disorder (SAD).'*** Ohhhh. I was speechless for two seconds. 'Wow, I didn't know that,' I told him rather lamely. Argg. Blame my ignorance. Or my being Filipino? I thought to myself.

The next day, Janice and I had an interesting talk about this whole sun lamp thing. We both agreed that although we come from a region where we have plenty of sunlight, we found it somewhat unthinkable that people could feel depressed with the weather. 'We have at least 26 typhoons a year in the Philippines but I haven't heard of anybody getting depressed because of the flooding and the rains,' I told her. Janice said, 'It's the same thing where I come from. I guess depression is not an Asian thing (maybe except in the more affluent parts of Asia).' Okay, maybe a good number of Pinoys do get depressed but I'm almost certain that bad weather is not the main reason for it:-)

And then we made the same observation of the Brits apologizing constantly about their weather, almost to a fault. Wow, I wonder how they'd feel if they get the chance to live in the Philippines, or worse, Bangladesh. Where I come from, heavy rains and strong winds are almost a daily companion for six months. But I rarely hear people apologize about it to visitors in the city. Maybe because there's little we can do about the weather...

***One in 50 people in the UK are affected by SAD.