China Blog the Fourth. Topic: Two Things That Would Never Be Okay in the U.S. of A.
A lot of China intrigued me, interested me, and fascinated me but these two things warranted a blog post of their own.
On a sunny Shanghai afternoon in a big central park, a good quarter mile's worth of walkways were covered by big blue awnings with clotheslines strung between the awning's supports. The walkways were packed full of people all intently studying these papers shown below:
So what do you guess they were doing? I was pretty clueless but I guessed it was a non-tech version of Craigslist. Luckily my handy China expert, Kate, was there to explain it all to me: matchmakers! These are all parents who are seeking a spouse for their (adult) child and the best way to find a worthy candidate among 1.4 billion is to look at these picture-less personal ads and then find the parents who advertised their child. It's all handled by the parents. I'm no pro on the Chinese dating scene, but generically speaking parents don't arrange the marriages but kids wouldn't dream of dating or marrying a person their parents didn't approve of and it's more or less required to date a person who has been selected during this blue-awning-park process. While this would never fly in the States, it makes sense in China that the parents are extremely selective because common practice is that a husband's parents move in with the couple as soon as the first (and usually last) child is born to help raise it.
Speaking of babies, this next thing totally blew me away despite forewarnings by Kate. It never occurred to me that there's an alternative to diapers for children before they're potty-trained. Well China has embraced another method- check out the baby's butt below! Yes that's a butt crack free for the world to see.
The entire private parts region in all the kids' clothes is cut out so there's no need to dress your baby in pink or blue to guess the gender- people can just check out their junk! And calling them "private parts" doesn't really work in this situation either.
What really makes it all crazy is when a child has a #1 or a #2 while wearing these crotchless panties (sorry if that term is too lewd). The parent assists by lifting a leg or holding the baby over the grass and then they're on their way. Or the toddler just stops on the sidewalk for a quick wee-wee squat. If you step in something on the sidewalk, it could be dog poo..... or little person poo. When touring the Summer Palace, I almost fell down a steep flight of stone steps because I was craning my neck spying on two tiny boys who were squatting to have a little tinkle without taking any clothes off. I guarantee I absolutely gaped at every child I saw with these butt-cut-outs. Andrew told me multiple times to stop staring and he didn't understand my crusade to snap a discreet photo, but I was transfixed. Shocked actually.
Okay, I want to temper this indignation a little bit. Not all the little runts were peeing and pooing all over the place. Plenty of kids wore diapers or their parents were polite about disguising what was happening. Diapers are expensive and obnoxious and I don't need to be so judgemental about it. But seriously! I've never seen anything like it.
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