ShanghaiMamas

Dressing for Comfort

Thursday, July 3rd 2008

By Katrina Beikoff*

I am thinking of making a Chinese version of a ridiculous show — that absolutely tickled me — I once saw.

It was called ”How far From the Beach is it Acceptable to Wear Your Underwear?”  Or something like that.

It started with a guy wearing white Y-fronts on Bondi Beach, where few beach-goers looked askance.

He progressed to the Esplanade of the well-heeled, celeb-filled iconic beachside suburb of Sydney, Australia, still with few querying looks as he strutted about in nothing but undies (although he may also have worn thongs — the footwear — as well.  Australia does have some standards regarding attire.)

He carried on testing the theory of people’s acceptance of inappropriate dress and underpants-tolerance on buses, in the mall, sightseeing towers, office blocks, the city’s outer suburbs, county towns, and ultimately, the outback.

In China, I think it is also a theory worth testing.

On pajamas.

How far from the Chinese bedroom is it socially acceptable to wear nightclothes?

I originally thought it was the proximity of our home to numerous hospitals that lay behind the great number of pajamas-wearers I encountered.

Then it wasn’t so close to the hospital that I began noticing the phenomenon.

Or in the middle of the night.

Or even early morning.

I saw one woman cycling around the bazaars near Yuyuan Gardens wearing pajamas and high heels.  They were nice pajamas.  It was also about 11am.

And the number of times I’ve seen men out for a stroll, a smoke and a chat in their pajamas and dress shoes just blocks from Nanjing Xie Lu — Shanghai’s No.1 shopping street where high fashion is found and flaunted —  is getting ridiculous.

Friends have started randomly reporting their own odd pajamas-wearer sightings. A seemingly dapper middle-aged gent squiring a fashionable young woman emerged from a Fuxing Lu clothing store around midday — she in a frock and heels, he in pajamas and brogues.

Another popped out of a Xikang Lu hairdressers about 4.30pm dressed for bed.

On the Bund, a man was taking in the view wearing pajamas, loafers and a cravat.

On the corner of Weihei Lu and Shaanxi Bei Lu, a man performed the magnificent feat of riding his bicycle to transport a regulation-sized refrigerator, in peak hour traffic, wearing his pajamas.

Carl Crow, in his must-read ”Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom”, writes of the Chinese bewilderment about 80 years ago at Western Griffins (these days called ‘newbie’s’) getting around in their uncomfortable attire.

As he noted then, and perhaps still now, maybe they have it right and our puzzling at their style is matched by their amusement at ours.

And the answer to the question posed by my show might just be: ”anytime, anywhere”.

*Katrina Beikoff is a Shanghai-based journalist and mum-of-two.  She writes fortnightly for shanghaimamas.com.cn and monthly for the Shanghai Daily newspaper.  Her latest column can be seen at shanghaidaily.com. Go to opinion then foreign perspectives.

You can write a response. Follow the responses by subscribing to the RSS feed.

View latest in Articles.