Always, Hear, White, Clear

As Dan says "This is China."  China is a weird country and most foreigners seem to agree with me. It's full of contradictions. The Chinese people are obsessed with their health and hygiene. In China, people wear surgical masks. People wear them when shopping in public, chefs wear them in the kitchen during food preparation. Many restaurants shrink wrap the dish ware they serve at the table. Restaurants also maintain traditional food service routines like pouring tea over your bowls and chop sticks which is quickly discarded as a means to sanitize and purify all food paraphernalia. I was told that this is a Guangdong tradition, no other province does this. All of this occurs in a country wear there is virtually no graffiti but people hack and spit in every nook and cranny of public space, piss and shit in the street. 

I've heard of parents encourage their little kids to poop an pee on the floor of grocery stores. All sorts of foodstuffs meat, eggs, fish are all left unattended and unrefrigerated and outside on tables. Today, we went shopping. We took the train to Dongmen to go explore the large outdoor malls and huge flea markets. Desi and I went through Dongmen looking for the most ridiculous clothing. I bought a T-Shirt and then to a 11 Floor mega electronics center in Huiqiang Eai Bay. Many of the items sold at the flea market were quite hilarious. I had an idea of what I would see on some of the clothing I've seen around the city, shirts with random English words and phrases, often misspelled, that make no sense at all. Some are greatly inappropriate but most just are pure nonsense. I saw a shirt on a girls shirt yesterday that said mother's milk run fast. Even after seeing that the clothing was still a shocker. Another observable fact is that many of the male items are significantly feminine in design. 

Shirts bedazzled with sparkly rhinestones are marketed to men. I was hoping to find a weird none sense like non feminine t shirt I would enjoy wearing at home. I settled for a gray t shirt with a stacks of books in the backgroud and the text BOOKSHELF in the foreground. Tastefully designed, correctly spelled yet completely nonsensical.