Chinese Fashion: As Obscene and Perplexing as Ever

Originally published via Armageddon Safari:

“Horrendous” also applies here, but I didn’t want to oversaturate the headline with adjectives. (Tucker Carlson’s “more verbs, less adjectives” mantra is the best writing advice perhaps ever dispensed.)

Often, in East and Southeast Asia, picking out the Chinese based on purely physical features is more of an art than a science.

While it’s true that, as a rule of thumb, compared to their Southeast Asian peers, Chinamen tend to have lighter skin, bigger bodies, and uniquely square-shaped heads, their Sino-ness is still difficult to ascertain, particularly because of the interbreeding that’s been done with, for instance, Bangkok Thais over many centuries.

So here I’ve compiled, through photographic documentation, the telltale signs of Chinese tourists, extremely important work that I diligently perform for the benefit of you people for very little financial compensation.

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[If you appreciate Armageddon Safari, please consider a $5/month or $50/year Substack subscription or a one-time digital “coffee” donation. For alternative means of patronage, email benbartee@protonmail.com.]

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More often than not, the dress is the giveaway.

If the goatlike noises made over a bowl of noodles — which they will often attempt to haggle with the vendor over in order to save 10 cents, but that’s a story for another day — or the brazen smoking in clearly designated non-smoking places with huge Mandarin letters underneath the symbols of lit cigarettes with red lines through them don’t give away their ethnicity, the fashion will.

These people have an inexplicable affinity for high-rise socks — like cholo gangbangers, but without the pizzazz.

They’ll pair calf-high or knee-high socks with dress shoes but without any other dress clothes, a very curious and disconcerting choice.

For reasons unknown to modern science, you’ll often also find Chinese out in the wild with extremely loudly colored socks that match in no way any other article of clothing they happen to be wearing at the time.

So, the socks are a dead giveaway.

In addition, this woman here, captured roaming the market in Chatuchak Park, exemplifies two Chinese fashion tendencies simultaneously: ankle-length denim skirts like Asian Mennonites or something and ostentatious, wide-brimmed fishing hats.

(Note, once again, the pairing of black socks with white shoes in the first photo and, conversely, the pairing of white socks with black sandals in the second.)

Why these fishermen’s hats are so wildly popular with the Chinese, I certainly have no idea.

Someone maybe did a bang-up marketing job on Alibaba.

Who knows?

Not me.

The socks — they never lie.

Last but not least, the rolly suitcase. They love rolly suitcases and take them everywhere, even on casual strolls through street food markets.

So there you have it: out-of-place and flamboyant socks, long denim Mennonite skirts, fishermen’s hats, and rolly suitcase luggage — the telltale signs that you’ve got a Chinese tourist, probably up to no good and probably on the spectrum in that uniquely Chinese way, on your hands.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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