Babies and Bar Hopping

The clothes in China have been interesting. Mostly the young people wear normal things but a few of my favorites are as follows. I was expecting the love of jeans even in the hot and humid weather. (The weather here is great by the way, warm but with great breezes) The girls love short skirts and shorts with leggings paired with shirts that have english sayings on them with most of the words misspelled. There is no hope of purchasing a cool shirt with chinese writing on it. They wear high heels everywhere even on bicycles and even though most of the roads in China are made either of very wobbly stones or just mud and dirt. So inevitably, I look very much the tourist in my flip flops (which they consider bath slippers). I especially love that the main use of umbrellas, which are for sale on every corner in every color, is as a parasol so they can stay as white as possible. The strangest looks we have received are when we are enjoying basking in the sun. The whiter the better and more beautiful. The boys have an inclination to wear their pants as high as their armpits as if they've watched Family Matters once too many and misunderstood Urkel's sense of style as a distinctly cool western fashion. Hopefully we will get a picture of this soon, its really a great sight. One thing that is going to take some getting used to is the underarm hair. Girls love to wear sleeveless and spaghetti strapped shirts and show off that little black tuft peeking out around their arm.

By far though, my favorite and the one I will never get used to is pictured below - crotchless baby pants. When we were looking at some ancient paintings we saw the children pictured wearing these kind of pants. I understand it then, no diapers. But now? Moms and dads just walk down the street holding their child (baby and toddler) with the front and back of the crotch wide open. At least its easy to distinguish the sex of the child. We sat next to one on the bus yesterday and all we could do was cross our fingers that the child didn't feel the need to relieve herself. Potty training in China mostly consists of teaching your child to squat on the side of the road which we have experienced many times. The practice doesn't seem to wear off once you know better and are able to feel embarrassement because we definitely saw a 15 year old girl taking a squat by a bus stop. I tried to get the baby below to turn around for a frontal view but I thought that might be a bit much.
The only shopping we have done so far is for necessities but considering the fashions we have seen thus far, I don't think we will be buying many things. Nothing is as cheap as I was expecting, mainly because the clothes that are decent are made by expensive western brands. Oh well, no need for a big wardrobe as everyone pretty much wears the same thing every day anyway.

The last 2 pictures are of our first experience with the night life with some of our fellow teachers. Below from left to right are Kendall, Paul (from the UK), Dan Brown (not the author, he's from Canada), Royale (as in Royale with Cheese from Texas), and Joachim (from Norway and our next door neighbor). An interesting and lively bunch. We went to an American owned restaurant where we got to have french fries and I accidentally ordered an entire bottle of wine. Gotta love the language barrier!

Next we ventured onto another American owned bar (Catch 22) where we partook in foosball and darts, then proceeded to a bar (Revolution) owned by an New Zealander. Pictured below is me with Brendan the owner and another English teacher from India whose name (Ujawal Jha) I will never be able to pronounce. All in all, a good night and I am sure we will be frequenting the establishments in the future.

Our experience with other "English Teachers" so far has been intriguing. Many own bars, restaurants, or other shady business ventures. Teaching English is almost a way to earn some quick, easy money. But, it never hurts to have friends that own bars, so no complaints here.

Who knows, maybe we will have a joint venture by the time we return home!

Til next time,

DB & KM