There are many different styles in China and when it comes to what people wear it doesn’t seem to matter how outrageous it looks to the foreigner or to anyone else for that matter. This morning I saw a young guy walking his small poodle dog which had its wee coat on and he was sporting a pair of gold coloured training shoes.
I’ve seen folk in the west get beaten up for less. But in China this is perfectly acceptable along with the woman I saw wearing a T shirt which said” Who the Fuck is Mick Jagger? ”
So I find it quite a liberating experience to be able to wear what you want and not really be self conscious because in China anything goes. So I’m wondering why is this the case?
Well for many years the Chinese people wore the same clothes, well not the rich or the elite but the normal everyday working man and woman, they wore the standard issue Chairman Mao suit.He wore this of course so that he could blend in and look like one of the many and to wield his power as dictator more easily. After all if you look like an ordinary person then you must be OK.
Kim Jong-Un in North Korea does the very same thing; you don’t see him wearing lavish suits in public. In fact quite often the people around him look better dressed. This basic ploy helps to make the Leader look like one of the people.
To this day Mao is a revered character to many Chinese both young and old. If only they knew the truth about this man and if they did I don’t really think it would matter anyway. Mao seems to be remembered more for the good he did and not as the cruel dictator that killed millions of his own people and destroyed much through what is known as the Cultural Revolution..
He is seen as the man who made it possible for China to become what it is today, which is the most powerful country on earth. I say China instead of America because the tide is turning and it’s turning against America. America may still have more missiles but China has been slowly taking the world over by stealth. China has invested in every continent and has gone to many countries that the west will not or cannot go to. The new Belt and Road initiative will revolutionise the way goods are transported from east to west and vice versa. Of course this is seen with suspicion and maybe they should but maybe this is just a good idea. It will benefit many countries and of course China.
America is also not well liked in the world as they only seem to want to go into another country to change the thought process and of course steal the resources that might be up for grabs. Now I don’t think for one moment that China is going around the world as a benefactor, in many ways it is there for the same reasons as America but it seems to build infrastructure rather than destroy and conquer. It does it is a smarter way, as I said before; it does it by stealth and because of this it’s agenda might just out manoeuvre the Americans and the west.
What the Chinese government thinks is anybody’s guess but if you ask any Chinese person on the street that is going about their daily business, then the answer is mostly the same. The want peace and they don’t want war; they don’t want to take over the world. They don’t really care what goes on in the west and they hope that many of the western problems don’t come here to China. For instance the level of violence in many western countries is a concern. Many people here know that they don’t have total freedom but then again they feel safe and they are happy to compromise a little to feel safe. Some of the restrictions on the internet are really stupid and the sites that are blocked are so random sometimes it’s hard to understand why.
I’ve lived in China for the last year and a bit and I have not been converted to communism and I have not been brainwashed. Instead I have enjoyed my time away from the west. I’ve lived in Australia for many years and I still read the papers and keep up with a little of the news coming from there and it’s absolutely laughable at the state of the place. They really couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. The biggest laugh at the moment is the fiasco about the citizenship of many of the members of parliament; I mean none of them are really Australian, there a mixture of ethnic mongrels from the rest of the world. This could have been sorted out in a matter of days if they had done the audit that many members spoke about, Oh the other sad thing from there is that they are considering one of the biggest open cut mines in the world from a dodgy Indian Company called Adani. And corruption doesn’t exist they say, well this is proof that it does. For some reason which I can never fathom, is why Australia does not look at the rest of the world and see the mistakes made by other countries and learn from their mistakes rather than push on with eyes and ears covered.
Anyway I digress, but when it comes to fashion trends I think that in China there is not one trend. There are so many styles here it’s way too hard to put a label on it. You will still see the older folk wearing the traditional cultural revolution Mao clothing and many of the older woman wear these really colourful jackets that looked like they have been made from left over curtain material. Young folk, especially the women wear so many diverse styles that to a western eye would seem out of place. For example we would get dressed up to go somewhere special, they seem to think every day is special. If I had some pictures, which I don’t unfortunately, then you would understand a bit better what I mean but then maybe you will have to come here and see for yourself.
