Published by Swiss James on 22 Aug 2007
Summer socks
Despite all Craig’s warnings to the contrary:
“Oh you won’t be able to cope with the summer here James it’s like Dante’s inferno with noodles”
“It’s so hot in August, when you open your mouth, steam comes out”
“Last year I ran out of water so had to cut open a dog and shower in its blood” etc. etc.
I actually find the summer in Shanghai to be pretty bearable, even pleasant.
Yes you have to change your shirt 8 times a day, but then one’s Ayi takes care of one’s laundry so that’s not a problem. And yes, I take 5 showers a day, but my hair is so short that I’m in and out of there like an Iraqi snatch-squad. Thus far at least, I’ve managed to avoid joining the throngs of men who walk the streets shirtless, and have resisted the Shanghainese urge to cool off by rolling my vest up to my nipples, and trousers up to my knees.
In fact I’m so immune to the heat that I’ve managed to keep on wearing normal socks instead of the horrendous, transparent, nylon ’summer socks’ that my workmates wear.
Ryan insists that these are definitely not just a trimmed down pair of his wife’s stockings, nor did he buy them from a specialist Transvestite shop. Not only that, he had the gall to suggest that in China, wearing normal socks all the year round would mark me out as a poor peasant who can’t afford two kinds of socks. The cheeky swine.