Sleepers

Out shopping in Central yesterday and saw ...

 On sale at Dymocks Bookshop,

Jardine House, Central.

I was most annoyed because I've been toying with the idea of a book on the subject for some time, and, in anticipation, I've been photographing this extraordinary phenomenon:

 

  

 

Only a few of the hundreds of photos I've taken.

 Yes, Chinese can fall asleep anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyhow.

Like, on the MTR, especially in the mornings and late at night, you look down the carriages and every single Chinese person is asleep. And it's never a problem because they just wake up at their stop and get off. And once, just for an experiment, I decided to put my hand on the handbag of a woman sleeping next to me and barely had I started the move when she instantly woke up and glared at me.

It really is astonishing, isn't it?

Like, look at this sequence with this gorgeous little boy:

 See how he's sleeping on the ferry when I take his photo and despite there being no noise or flash, he wakes up, registers me, decides I'm "no threat", then instantly falls asleep again.

But, like, HUH?

Oh, and in Singapore, where zillions of different races live together,  you really do notice how it's always only the Chinese asleep on the train.

I talked to Kendi about it a few weeks back and her response was "Oh, it isn't strange at all. I can do it myself. "  and when I quizzed her she said " It's very easy. You tell your body where you're going and you wake up when you arrive." and when I asked about the woman who registered me about to touch her handbag, she said "You always feel when something's wrong and instantly wake up to deal with it." but she couldn't explain how it was done.

Truly phenomenal, huh? And also extraordinary and unbelievable, that, as it seems, their bodies can use any "downtime", when it isn't needed for anything else, to switch off, yet it remains alert enough to register even the tiniest changes in their immediate environment, even someone taking their photo from a distance or about to touch their belongings.

However, since someone has already put out a book on the subject, there's no point in me keeping any of these anymore, so here's one more shot from my files before they're deleted forever: 

And yes, this young girl was woken 

up by my taking this shot, as was 

everyone else in every photo I've ever taken 

of this Chinese peculiarity.

But, since that little boy on the ferry is so gosh-darn cute, I might just keep that single sequence just for the record.