Clothing—2005

The rather clumsy translation on the sign would better be translated as “The clothes make the person.” From the looks of it, many Chinese have taken this to heart. I guess since so much of the world’s clothing is now made in China, you can hardly expect them not to be wearing some of it.

Today in China you see a tremendous range of clothing styles. Some people still wear the Mao suit, but others are dressed much more fashionably. In 1981 if you saw a fashionably dressed young woman, you could be certain she was foreign, but today the odds are she would be Chinese, and your odds of seeing very fashionably dressed young people are very high indeed. T-shirts bearing English writing also are popular, though some of the translations are unintelligible. One day I saw a girl wearing a T-shirt that tells all: “Shopping makes me feel better.” Chairman Mao must be turning in his grave—er mausoleum.