Men are finally learning to liberate themselves. They are beginning to dress down.
Of course, it had to make sense on a practical level before anything happened; the 'liberation' of men all started from the need to conserve energy. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was the first to forego the jacket and tie and fashion designers worldwide sprung at the idea, eager to follow suit ... or, should I say, 'un-suit'. Even the Taiwanese have been seriously experimenting with the 'business T-shirt'. Sensibility has dawned on office apparel at last.
Yet still this 'frigid metropolis' in which we reside stays frozen in its ways. Hong Kong office elevators remain packed flush with three-piece suits. Huddled in the corner of one of these glacial conveyances, I start to wonder if I'll ever see a 'liberated' Hong Kong man.
Friends of the Earth provides this alarming statistic: air conditioners in Hong Kong produce an average of 233,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, which would require an area of forest covering three-quarters of Hong Kong to convert back into oxygen. Air-conditioning in the city is notorious for being arctic. Unsuspecting travellers are warned by popular guidebooks to bring jackets and long pants if they plan on venturing into office buildings, restaurants, cinemas, shopping malls - basically anywhere indoors.
I'm a bundled-up teddy bear sitting at my desk cupping a mug of hot coffee with both hands. I feel sorry for the office lady I left turning blue in the elevator. She'd probably rather freeze to death than wrap a jacket around her slim figure. I'm not the first to notice that at the heart of this issue is a gender divide.
In careers and in health, women are the ones who accommodate. It will probably be years later that we find statistics showing a clear inverse correlation between the number of elderly women who suffer arthritis and the air-conditioner temperature settings in their office buildings.