China is a fan of short shorts. A fan, I might add, regardless of leg shape or size. I have seen many a pair of pants that, whilst not entirely Kylie Minogue circa Spinning Around, are only maybe an inch or two from it.
It seems that cleavage, on the other hand, is much less common. Needless to say my wardrobe has been completely thrown out of whack. I don’t do leg (with the exception of the occasional fancy dress doo). I’m more a ‘my milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard’ kind a gal. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t own any shorts – long or short – and China, I don’t know that you can convert me. Not without having me spend 4 hours in the gym each day, getting a little spider vein removal, some waxing, intensive exfoliating and a damn good fake tan.
Whilst I feel very safe here on my own, I do get stared at quite a lot, which can be a little unsettling. This has happened in Beijing and Shanghai – both cities with a lot of foreign tourists and foreign residents. For a while I found myself checking my attire in case I had left the house without some key piece of clothing. Given I walk, relatively conservatively dressed, surrounded by hotpants (well, I exaggerate – there isn’t a sea of them but they are out there), I’m pretty baffled.
The other day a fellow walked in front of me for a good 30m with his head turned backwards, just staring (I am ignoring the fact that about 30 seconds prior, he had jumped behind me in the turnstile to exit my complex – the turnstile requires a security swipe pass both in and out and I’m presuming he didn’t have one on him and couldn’t speak English to ask if I would let him out, so just jumped in at my back). I was with my significant other, also a foreigner, so maybe we were twice as appealing. I could only assume he was from a more rural area that didn’t get many foreign visitors. I have a local friend here who took her niece to The Great Wall. The girl was from out of town and wanted pictures of herself on the wall with foreign tourists in the background – very funny.
Whilst I do my best to ignore the attention, I have to say, the stares you get are often ‘hard stares’ rather than what I interpret to be looks out of pure curiosity. By that I mean there are often no smiles forthcoming.
I am fair skinned, dark haired, have a rather pointy, beak-like nose and blue-grey eyes. The latter two features, I suspect, are more the reason for the staring. But still…there are seriously leggy German girls with blue eyes and long blonde hair IN SHORT SHORTS riding bicycles here and they seem to cruise by with limited attention.
Maybe I just need a bike?
