Randy the Janitor

There is Canadian TV series The Trailer Park Boys which has character Randy who never ever wears a shirt.  In the TV series, this toplessness is done to the extreme.  Randy never wears a shirt when attending a wedding, for example.  In Canadian culture, men who go around shirtless in public are considered to be low class boors.  Hence, the origin of the no shirt, no shoes, no service signs that are posted at restaurant entrances.  So, to actually see this male toplessness is a rare thing in Canada.

Not in China.  Last night, I saw a janitor, in my wife’s office building,doing his job without a shirt.  It was humid in the parts of the building with no A/C.  On humid days, it is also not uncommon to see local men walking down the street carrying their shirts on their shoulders.  Another thing local men will do, on hot days, is roll up their shirts to expose their stomachs.  Some of these guys look pregnant or to have nice Tsingtao muscle.  And driving in a vehicle without a shirt on is not unrare either.

The K family went to the Ferris Wheel Mall last evening for dinner.  Video  We went to a hot pot restaurant.  ‘‘Twas delicious!  While there, my Laowai being was of interest to some child who had to walk right up to our table and stare me in the face.  Ignore it is all I can do.

Driving into Chinese malls at certain times of the day is perilous.  Traffic is heavy and lineups are long and parking spots take time to find.  Entering the Mall parking garage last night was a case of going against the tide.  We passed at least fifty cars were trying to get out out of the mall.  This made finding parking even more difficult as the exiting cars were blocking the way to parking spots.  But find a spot we did.  Video

So, if you ever drive into a Chinese mall parking garage at a busy time, my advice is to head to the lowest parking level as soon as possible.  You’ll save yourself the aggravation of driving around and looking for a parking spot.

Varieties of cuisine we have eaten in China:  Japanese, Korean, Hunanese, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Thai, from Hangzhou, from the USA. from Guangdong, from Hong Kong, from Lanzhou, from Chongqing, from Sichuan, from Wuxi, to name a few.

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