Rain in Singapore

Thanks to the frosty setting of my room’s air conditioner, I am slowly drying out. According to my web sources, the rainy season here ends by the end of March. Apparently the weather is less well informed than the average American tourist.

Today (Friday) was a free day for me, so I took off on foot to explore Singapore. When it began to rain, I managed to find a nice bar to duck into. (Some would call it luck that I so quickly found a dry haven to wait out the weather’s harsh rebuke – I call it preparedness, a legacy of my youthful Boy Scout training.) Little did I realize that this particular bar would be so rich in historical context.

I discovered from a talkative and thirsty Englishman who was drinking his lunch at the same establishment that our current digs were previously quite popular with a once obscure but now infamous stock trader by the name of Nick Leeson. Does the name ring a bell? In 1995, using a convenient category in his employer Barings’ accounting software called ‘Error Account 88888’, Leeson hid over US$1B in trading losses – approximately equal to the total assets of the veritable English bank. The bankrupted Barings was eventually sold for £1 and Leeson served about 4 years in a Singapore prison. (By all accounts he was treated well – harsher punishments like caning are reserved for juvenile vandals who spray-paint graffiti on an otherwise pristine country.)

After three beers, the weather seemed to be letting up and my fear of drowning overcame my fear of getting wet. I only got a few blocks before the rain began again and I reached my current soaked state. [The inquisitive reader may well wonder, “In a place as humid as Singapore, where walking 100m in fine weather inevitably results in a state of being completely soaked, how can one actually tell that it is raining?” An excellent question. The practice of careful observation is needed. If the sky turns dark and the temperature drops 10 degrees and one still finds that a short walk down the street completely dampens the clothes, chances are it is raining.] I’m sure I’ll dry out shortly. When I do, it will be just in time to chance the weather again for dinner. Chili crab, here I come.

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