Supersize Me

Fai Fai (aka Jayson) and I went shopping from 1:30pm - 9pm with a 45 minute break for a meal. My legs are fatigued, my feet hurt from my attempt to break in *new* chucks, my hair is wavy from the humid heavy rains, and my wallet is much lighter.

The theme for today was "what's the largest size you carry?" That's what I asked in every store I walked into because even though both my parents are Chinese, I somehow came out to be a gigantor freak of nature. How is the population of Hong Kong so tiny and yet the tallest female in the world is Chinese? Most places don't even carry my shoe size. As I passed by stores, a clever few would yell out "we carry size large and size 9 (shoe)!!" I would always go into those stores =) In most of the trendier spots, the largest size they carry is medium, if even that. Oh and the best part: For the first time in my life, I tried on pants and they got stuck on my calves. What the hell!! And then when they handed me the largest size up from that, they got stuck on my thighs. That was probably the highpoint of my shopping experience. Now I know that I'll just be shopping for dresses, purses, and other accessories. Speaking of purses, my Urban Outfitters purse broke for the second time and is irreparable. Piece of shit! You'd think that price would correlate with higher quality. That's boo boo.

I'm not sure if people are just that small or if they are that small because if they weren't, they would be forced to be naked or consistently sporting sweatpants. I've only been here for 2 days and I want to get lipo and cut off my toes so that I can fit into these funky, fresh, and fobby clothing! The pressures are insane. There's nothing like 7.5 hours of not fitting into clothes to boost your self-confidence. I just have to keep thinking that, relative to the most obese country in the world, I am thin!

Okay, I kid. The point of this blog is to say that it's nuts how important it is to be petite in this country. We talk about the pressures to be thin in America, but it seems like that ideal thinness is standard here, and the goal is to be even thinner that what we imagine. It's just strange how skinniness is a way of life. And it's not just that people are structurally small, I've seen a good number of relatively "tall" guys and girls. They definitely don't use height as an excuse for weight. I don't know why I find it so intriguing that the cultural standards for appearance are so different. I suppose it's because body image is so vital to self-confidence and governs so much of our perceptions, actions, and behaviors...and yet it varies so much across time and space. It's just strange having your power and sense of self change in a matter of a 14 hour plane ride.

By the by, Pizza Hut is a sit-down restaurant here.