Saturday, November 07, 2009

Chinese Fashion

Well, another Saturday night has passed.

We went out to a resaurant in china town.

We went with some friends and their daughter, who are Mandarin speakers, but who have been in Australia since they were very young.

Sinclair and Nancy are very nice people, are great to have a conversation with, and given that they speak Mandarin as well, they keep my mother-in-law involved in the conversation, so she doesn't feel left out.

The main topic of discussion over dinner last night was co-incidental in that it is a topic that I have previously raised in this blog.

It was initiated by Nancy as an observation while we were walking to the restaurant through china town.

Nancy said: " Chinese women have changed so much. They all want to look rich or sexy. How can a man respect them when they dress this way?"

It was in response to a sequence of Chinese women that we had passed on the way to the restaurant wearing really sexualised clothing. I need to emphasise that this clothing stood out a mile away, and can only be described as excessively sexualised, at the expense of good taste.

Even my 7 year old son whispered to me: "Daddy, I can see that woman's bum" and then started giggling. This woman was wearing extremely short shorts along with high heels. These shorts exposed the top of her underwear (being a g-string of course).

Both Nancy and Ms B could both be described as conservative dressers, and so during the evening Siclair and I joked that they could learn something from these women, and start wearing more attractive clothing.

It was all in good humour of course, and provided us an evening of laughter and enjoyment as we continually pointed out more and more examples of dresses or skirts or other provocative clothing that our women should be wearing.

The cake of soap

Well, our differences seem to extend into the shower.

I like to use a soap with a pleasant fragrance to it. However Ms B and her mother insist on a cake of soap with an odour resembling some kind of harsh industrialised detergent.

I don't know where they find this soap, but it certainly wouldn't sell in a Coles or a Woolworths.

Every time I get near it I get an idea of what life would have been like in those concentration camps in China during the cultural revolution. This is really harsh soap that leaves one feeling that their body has been stripped of all vital moisture. It is certainly not a luxury item.

In any case, its always there in the shower, whether I like it or not.

In order to get around this, I recently purchased a bottle of body shampoo, as something that I could use and at least feel like I had a real showever.

The day after I purchased it, the bottle went missing.

When I asked Ms B what happened to it, she quickly ran to the bathroom. She returned with an old handwash bottle.

She then proudly stated that her mother diluted the contents of my bottle, and got to fill four old handwash bottles.

When I told her that it was for me to use in the shower, she looked at me strangely and said, "why would you use that in the shower? We already have soap!"

What do you like/dislike most about Chinese women?