Offshore Observations Part 3 - The Pale People

I have lived among them for years now.

The Pale People.

They inhabit the same gated communities, occupy the same space, yet exist in an entirely different dimension. You do not see them. You do not hear them. But you know they are there.

Their homes are what you would expect if a yuppie (a young urban professional, typically affluent and status-conscious) owned a bunker—not in the grand, unsustainable way of old wealth, but in the paranoid, artificial-grass kind of way. The kind of bunker where every inch of greenery is synthetic, where front lawns are pristine yet untouched, a performance of nature rather than nature itself. Blacked-out windows, some mirrored like interrogation rooms, ensuring that while they can observe the world outside, the world outside cannot observe them. CCTV cameras dress the exterior, silently watching, always watching.

Like their homes, their cars are an extension of this philosophy—tinted, blacked-out SUVs and luxury sedans that glide through the community like delivery vans, yet never seem to reveal their occupants. You’ll see their Toyota Alphards and Vellfires shuttle back and forth, but you’ll never see them step in or out. They move with the kind of precision that suggests careful rehearsal.

But it’s not just that they stay inside. It’s that they have mastered the art of being invisible.

There are moments when this becomes almost absurd.

You can be sitting in your lounge, looking out at the house opposite, when a delivery driver arrives. He waits. And waits. You watch, expecting someone to emerge—someone you haven’t seen in months, maybe years, despite knowing they live right there. These are neighbors, after all. You might have even been to their house once, long ago, invited in for an evening that was never repeated, a glimpse into a world that then shut itself off forever.

And yet, the driver waits. No one comes.

Minutes pass.

Still, no one.

You wonder—is this the moment? Will one of them finally break cover?

But then, the food is gone. The transaction is complete. Yet somehow, no human being was visible in the process. It is as if their homes have digestive systems of their own, quietly absorbing parcels of food without revealing the mechanics of how.

How do they eat? How do they drink? How do they exist?

And more importantly—where does their trash go?

You will never see them take out the garbage. Not in the early mornings, not under the cover of night. There is no clatter of bins, no shuffle of someone dragging a plastic bag to the curb. And yet, the waste must go somewhere. The only logical conclusion is that, much like their food, it is absorbed into the house itself. Either they have devised a system to remove it without setting foot outside, or, more likely, it never leaves at all. Somewhere inside, there must be a room—sealed, air-conditioned, a private landfill where everything is stored until it can be discreetly disappeared. Another adjustment made to ensure they never have to expose themselves to a single second of sunlight.

This is a country where even the upper middle class still relies on bottled water—where clean drinking water is not always a given. But if they never carry groceries, if they never step outside, how do these things make their way inside? You begin to wonder if there is an underground tunnel network, a hidden system of deliveries and exchanges that ensures they never have to touch the outside world.

And when you step outside, when you walk down your street, you are immediately struck by the silence. It is a silence so thick, so uninterrupted, that your own footsteps seem unnaturally loud against the pavement. The only sounds are the occasional rustling of trees, the distant singing of birds—both untouched by human presence, as if the street is not meant to be lived in, but merely observed from behind tinted glass. It feels less like a neighborhood and more like a library of houses—a place so hushed, so absent of activity, that even the smallest noise feels like an intrusion.

They are protected from obstacles. From resistance. Every possible discomfort is engineered out of their existence. Their lives follow a precise structure, optimized to remove unnecessary interaction, unnecessary strain. Even their movement, when it happens, is carefully calibrated to reduce effort. If you ever see them outside of a car, it will be on something powered by electricity—grown men gliding silently on electric scooters, the kind designed for children but scaled up for adults who refuse to engage with gravity. Or on electric bikes that ensure pedaling is an optional feature rather than a requirement. It is exercise without exertion, motion without friction, an extension of the same principle that dictates every other aspect of their lives: physical reality is something to be minimized.

And yet, despite temperatures reaching 33 degrees, they leave their dogs outside. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes not even aware of their whereabouts. Their pets wander the gated labyrinth, ghosts of neglected companionship, until, inevitably, the moment arrives: a message appears in the community group chat.

"Where is my dog?"

No context. No buildup. Just a sudden realization that the animal has vanished. There is no frantic searching, no panicked calling of its name. Only the passive expectation that someone, somewhere, will resolve the situation.

A situation that likely arose because, at the crucial moment, they were too absorbed in a Domino’s pizza to notice their dog had departed.

And then, later, without warning, another presence appears. A large American man, roaming the streets on an electric scooter. The only one actively looking. The only figure moving with purpose, scanning the sidewalks, cutting slow, deliberate paths through the estate’s manicured sterility in search of the missing pet.

This is an example of a cultural malfunction unique to hyper-developing, emerging countries. In places where rapid modernization has created gleaming skylines, solar panels on rooftops, and an increasing number of Teslas on the road, there is often an illusion that social consciousness has kept pace. The aesthetics of progress—the technology, the infrastructure, the imported luxuries—suggest a place that has evolved ethically as well.

And yet, the dogs are left outside.

It is a glitch, a skipped update in the societal operating system. A strange oversight in a place where the homes are designed like self-sustaining ecosystems, where every inconvenience is preemptively removed, yet somehow, no thought is given to the fact that an animal is sweltering in unbearable heat, wandering the streets unattended. It is as if, in the rush to modernity, certain fundamental elements of responsibility—of empathy, of basic care—were bypassed entirely.

They have, in their own way, redefined what it means to be an introvert. In their world, introversion is not merely a preference for solitude—it is a socially acceptable form of hermitage. A lifestyle where human interaction is not just minimized, but almost entirely outsourced. Where avoidance is not a quirk of personality, but a structural feature of existence. The Pale People do not simply prefer solitude. They require it, designing their lives to ensure they never encounter anything outside of their control.

And then, one night a year, they do emerge.

Halloween.

A foreign tradition in a country that doesn’t share its origins, and yet, on this night, the streets are suddenly full of pale, ghostly figures draped in costume. The irony is almost too perfect—the one time they surface, they are masked, cloaked in disguise, as if even their rare outings require a layer of anonymity.

Occasionally, rarely, you will witness the phenomenon of umbrella couples. A pair drifting along the sidewalk in silence, shielded from the sun by perfectly positioned parasols. Perhaps they have been forced out—some urgent errand, a migration to another house to consult a fellow Pale Person. But if you blink, you might miss them. Like spotting a snow leopard in the wild, the moment is fleeting. By the time you register their presence, they have already shuffled out of sight, vanishing back into their controlled climate.

And should you find yourself in conversation with one of them, there is one question you will inevitably be asked:

"Why are you walking?"

They appear briefly.

And then they vanish again.

And the next morning, the sun rises over empty streets, over blacked-out homes, over parked cars that have moved but never revealed who moved them.

They are here.

And yet, they are not.