My New Chinese Dresses....ahhhh...Shirts.

Chinese fashion is really interesting.  The girls wear very uncomfortable three-inch heels everywhere.  Even on, like, walking tours.  Or to the grocery store.  Carrie Bradshaw has nothing on Chinese girls.

There are no bare midriffs.  No bikinis.  They don't like to show their stomachs at all.  Which I loved.  It was so refreshing not having that shoved in my face every second.  And they aren't really into showing cleavage.  (Um, a lot of them don't have cleavage.  Very flat-chested ladies over there.  I fit in quite well...)  Nothing is low-cut.

One thing they are comfortable in showing, though, is their legs.  Oh my.  Mini, mini, miniskirts.  Everywhere you look.

Ben went to the Silk Market in Beijing before he came home last month and got some clothes for me.  So sweet of him.  He bought me a couple of pairs of pants that say "XL" on them.  Um, they may have been extra large to the ladies over there, but to me, no.  I couldn't even get them up over my thighs.  I'm going to pretend that it's because my quads are so buff.

And Ben felt badly, but he really shouldn't.  I should be the one who feels badly, right?  I'm the one who has a little bit of a "weight problem," as Chris Farley would say.

Anywho, he bought me some shirts that actually did fit:

Aren't they fun?  So bright and vibrant.  I love me some bright prints.  They're extremely comfortable and cool.  They cover everything up top, so I don't have to wear a shirt underneath. (I HATE doing that. Especially in the heat of the summer.  Like I want to wear two fitted shirts layered one on top of the other...)  They're made of some kind of lycra.  They're flowey and wonderful.

Something funny about these shirts, though, is...they're not shirts.  Oh no.  They're dresses.  Dude, these hit me, like, right below the crotch.  At the longest.  I cannot figure out how a lady can wear this as a dress and not show everyone her underwear. 

And you may think, "Well, Chinese people are shorter, so the dresses are longer on them."  Not necessarily, my friends.  That really surprised me over there.  They're a myriad of heights, same as Americans.  Short, medium, tall.  There are a few chubby girls you see every now and then, but most of them are skinny.  And most of them have small feet.  I struggled to find shoes to fit my feet.  And, um, clothes to fit my body.

Two of these shirts came with ties that hit right beneath the chest, so that the dresses are kind of baby-dollish in style.  But I noticed that, when I wore the ties, I just looked pregnant.  For reals.  They looked like maternity shirts on me.  And I just couldn't handle looking pregnant when I'm really, really so not pregnant (and don't plan on getting pregnant ever again).  So I cut the little tie holders off the sides, threw away the ties, and now I just wear them more as tunics.  And I'm good with that.