World view

Early rising

Written by Karen Kingston Friday, 22 January 2010 06:41

Dawn As the time draws near for me to leave Bali, I've been reflecting on the things I have loved about living here.

High on my list is that Bali is a country of early risers. In fact, according to an online survey of 14,100 people conducted by AC Nielsen in October 2004, Indonesians (which, of course, includes the Balinese) were found to be the earliest risers in the world.

72% of Indonesians are out of bed by 6.00am, 91% by 7.00am, and most shops and businesses are open by 8.00 am. In the 20 years I've been here, my personal experience is that just about every Balinese person I know is already up by about 6.00am, and it's considered absolutely fine to call anyone at that time of day (and I often do). It's not so OK to call after 8.00 pm at night, though, because they may well be in bed.

I wasn't an early riser when I first came to live here. But pretty soon I became acclimatized to the rhythm of life and now it feels perfectly natural to wake up at dawn and go to bed in the early hours of the evening. By far the healthiest and happiest westerners I know here are those who do likewise. Long term residents who stay up late and sleep in every morning are out of synch, and it generally shows in their health or some other way.

Bali is 8 degrees south of the Equator, so the day and night are roughly twelve hours each, with dawn and dusk varying by only about an hour during the course of a year. I'm sure this helps immensely to regulate sleep. At the moment, dawn is around 6.00am so I wake up quite naturally as the sun rises and get out of bed. But I much prefer to go to bed a bit earlier and wake up at 4.00am or 5.00am so that I get to meditate in pitch darkness and peace before the cockerels start crowing.

Of the top ten early riser countries in the world, five are in Asia (Indonesia, Vietnam, The Philippines, India and Japan) and five are in Europe (Denmark, Germany, Austria, Finland and Norway. Portugal turns out to be the top night owl country in the world, with 75% of the population never in bed before midnight, and seven of the remaining nine top night owl countries are Asian (Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand). Not suprisingly, these are the most westernized and urbanized countries in Asia.

Japan, by the way, is the most worrying in this survey, because the Japanese are ranked as the 8th earliest risers in the world and also the 6th latest to go to bed, with the result that 41% of them are thought to get only six hours sleep per night. Hence the Japanese karoshi epidemic (death from overwork), which is estimated to claim 10,000 lives per year, on a par with the annual number of road accidents in Japan. That's westernization gone very wrong.

Early rising is now so much a part of my life that even when I visit other countries where the sun comes up much later in the day, I still wake up early. It's not just the pristine energies of dawn that I enjoy so much. It's also the lack of interruptions at that time of day because everyone else is still asleep. I find I can often do the equivalent of a full day's work before everyone else wakes up, leaving me free to do other things that most people don't have time for.

So how to become an early riser? Well, spending some time in a place where it's a natural way of life really helps. Interestingly, Balinese children are not sent to bed by their parents at a set time as they are in the West. They are allowed to stay up as long as they like, and soon discover for themselves that they feel too tired in the morning if they stay up too late. School here starts at 7.30am.

And if you live in a place where early rising is the exception rather than then norm then a good way to change your daily routine is to get up just a little bit earlier (say 10 minutes) each day until you reach your favourite early rising time. Make sure you do something in the extra minutes you have that you love to do and would never normally have time for. With a little bit of will power, most people find it takes about a month to reprogramme themselves.

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Australia

Written by Karen Kingston Tuesday, 07 July 2009 04:18

Bathtub I'm in Australia for a week.

I like Australia a lot. With the exception of the Sydney Opera House (which wasn't designed by an Australian), the architecture here is predominantly square and solid. Square architecture means practical people. I like practical people.

Interior designs are mostly very practical too. You don't often find arty farty bath taps here or complicated plugs that stop working after a year. Most of the taps I've seen are the chunky screw-down cross-shape. Turn and deliver. Bath plugs are made of heavy duty rubber and fit. Floor drains can cope with overflows. You can have fun in bathrooms here. They expect water and are designed to handle it.

In the apartment where I'm staying for the next few days, the bathtub even has a small ledge built into it, just under the taps. At first I thought it must hide a concealed drain but no, it's just a ledge. Then it dawned on me - it's a built-in foot-rest! Maybe I've lived in Bali too long and these are commonplace in the world now, but this is the first time I've ever seen one. It wouldn't surprise me if it's an Australian thing. It fits so well with the relaxed culture.

Australia is also the easiest place on Earth to get stuff done. What can often take days of phone calls in other parts of the world to fix a simple problem can usually be accomplished here in minutes with a cheery "No worries!" from the friendly human representing the big corporation you are asking to connect your broadband, deliver your parcel or book your flight. Feng Shui is all about harmony and flow. People think of it as being only to do with building design, but getting things done with the maximum of ease and the minimum of fuss is feng shui in action.

This is a country that tells it how it is, epitomized by a national campaign launched in the late 1990s with road signs everywhere that said: "If you drink then drive you're a bloody idiot!" (It worked too - the death rate from drunk driving fell by 46% over the next 8 years.)

It's a country that's also a continent, and home to five of the ten deadliest creatures in the world - the most dangerous snake (the Inland Taipan), the most dangerous shark (the Bull Shark), the most dangerous spider (the Sydney Funnel Web), the most dangerous crocodile (the Salt Water Crocodile) and the most dangerous Jellyfish (the Box Jellyfish). That keeps people very down-to-earth and in touch with their own mortality.

And it's a country with a great sense of humour, famed for its hilarious advertising. I leave you with my all-time personal favourite, 'The Jacuzzi Cannonball'. It reminds me a lot of my husband, Richard (you've guessed it, he's Australian, although he doesn't drink).

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