Nipples and Pajamas

A strange phenomenon happened right around the beginning of the Dragon Boat Festival in Shanghai (June 16^th). All of the sudden, every Chinese male in Shanghai decided that looking decent in public was no longer required. I started noticing this on the weekends when we were strolling around town. We live in a part of Shanghai referred to as “The Old City”. In this area some of the more traditional Chinese locals live and they are the biggest offenders. There are no Salvatore Ferragamo stores, no Western Steakhouses and no “acceptable” clothing on the Chinese males. At best, you will get their 1960s style full length pajamas – think pajamas from the show Mad Men but more ridiculous. At worst, the men are only wearing boxer shorts. Now you might be thinking that these people might just be running to the corner store for some a quick trip to get some eggs or milk. You would be wrong. These people are destined to spend the rest of the day roaming the streets of Shanghai in their pajamas, bare-chested or in their underwear.

There are essentially three types of outfits that the Chinese males like to showcase in the summer time. The first is the 1960s pajama look. This outfit is typically a light colored full length sleeper suit. A low cut V-neck is complemented by a set of overly large buttons down the front. The matching pants are neatly pressed, but a little warn. It is only missing the nightcap, that I can only assume goes on when they are inside. However, this has been replaced by the “Sun Umbrella”. This outfit has typically already been worn in previous summers, so there are the inevitable sweat stains on it. This is the classiest of the Chinese summer wear. There is no nipple exposure and a relatively remote chance that anything else private will be exposed accidentally. Compared to the other outfits, these “gentlemen” look like they are wearing their Sunday best. This outfit is typically seen on the middle aged Chinese male.

The second outfit that the more elderly Chinese men prefer is the dress pants and no shirt look. On extremely hot days this outfit may include a nice pair of shorts instead of the slacks. This is probably the most disgusting of the outfits, but the one I understand the most. I get it. Your old and you don’t give a damn anymore. It is hot and you aren’t wearing a shirt. It doesn’t matter that you have breasts, are overweight and are in the streets of a very large city. You have a Mahjong game to play with your buddies and you need to be as comfortable as possible. It is tough to concentrate on kongs, pungs and chows when you are sweating out a shirt. It is still gross and I still give them a dirty look when they make eye contact. Seriously man, at least wear a bra! You are scaring the Westerner’s children.

The last outfit was just introduced by the young Chinese males this past weekend. While we were coming out of the bar after watching Holland shock Brazil, we stumbled across a group of five Chinese young adults wearing nothing but their boxer shorts. Mind you it was 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) with 90% humidity. But still, boxers only? The buddy I was with commented, “Damn, I remember my shirt and shorts tonight”. The crew spoke English better than we had suspected, but chose not to pursue the comment since they were only wearing underwear. Since this occurrence I have seen at least three other groups of young males hanging out with only their boxer shorts on. Some are walking the streets, others are huddled around card table gambling, and some are sleeping in their fruit stands. It is bizarre, but goes completely unnoticed by any other locals.

There are a group of males that don’t think the pajama/boxers/topless look is acceptable. Instead, they implement the “Chinese Air-conditioning”. Apparently, I didn’t realize that if you are super hot and it is super humid out, all you have to do is roll up your shirt and neatly tuck it under your breasts to expose your midriff. This way your belly can breathe freely and you won’t get hot. Or at least that is the only rationale that I can think of as to why the males that aren’t dressed inappropriately have decided to walk around with their guts sticking out. I know what you are thinking – Chinese people are skinny so it can’t be that bad. Again, you would be wrong. I read an article today that said 10% (or 300,000,000) of the obese people in the world are Chinese. THREE HUNDRED MILLION! I have to assume at least 80% of the remaining obese people are American, but at least they wear shirts – usually. I am not sure which is worse: wearing pajamas all day, wearing dress pants with no shirts, wearing just boxers, or rolling up your shirt to your nipples. Thoughts?

The most amazing part to me is how nicely the women in Shanghai dress in comparison with their male counterparts. Every one of them is wearing either a nice dress, a skirt and a blouse, trendy shorts or something similar. They seem un-phased by the inappropriately dressed males that accompany them. There are no disparaging glances, smacks to the back of the heads, or any indication that the men’s attire is unacceptable. How can one gender be so well put together and the other so ambivalent to the way they are perceived?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to share of this phenomenon. So you will have to take my word for it – for now. Maybe I will take the camera out one day this weekend and try and snap a few pictures of the insanity that is summer attire in Shanghai.