my father has been recommending all day that we visit the "technology place". I just realized he means the dance club next door.

"nese" -Japanese, chinese, etc. as a term of rasism by western people

That's very amusing. It seems as though these were just ignorant people. They may be very intelligent, but they have not experienced the outside world. That is the problem that causes many of the gripes of foreigners on this forum and elsewhere. Usually these amusing little incidents are not a problem with Chinese. They are more of a problem with peasants anywhere. By peasants I mean people that enjoyed neither comprehensive education nor travel and long-term association with educated people from other cultures.

Of course, I should make the obligatory mention of the Opium War and two centuries of humiliation and an education system that reinforces indignation regarding this history. These factors make provincialism here manifest itself in ways that seem like insecurity and what we love to call an inferiority complex, much as you have described. Generally, more worldly Chinese - particularly those that have received something beyond just technical education abroad - are able to get beyond these vexing little provincialisms.

I will be accused of extreme elitism - a sin that may well rival racism - but I have always argued that the complaints foreigners have about Chinese - all of the misunderstandings - stem largely class rather than race. Here I am suggesting a global class structure and rank in it is not determined only by economic wealth or even gentility. After another generation of being part of the global class structure, these views will be harder and harder to find, at least in cities like Beijing.

Does one need a watch?

I lose many things, some of them expensive. Everything that isn't huge or fastened to the body with at least a four-in-hand is fair game. Let's not delve into the psychological as this is just the tip of the resume for this disintegrating, neuroses encased, ungrounded modern man.

It has come to my attention that it is ungentlemanly to rely on a cellphone for telling the time. I always suspected this was the case. I just cannot bear to spend good money or emotions on something that I no I will be fidgeting with in a bar some day, take off, and leave for a very fortunate waiter who would just have made his yearly salary in a night.

Should I continue with my reliance on the ungainly cellphone or buy a really cheap piece of manure that I don't mind losing? That's kind of what I do with hats after losing several that were made in Sicily, etc. For pocket squares, I only use former shirts.

Converses

When did converses gain the ability to make any outfit "cool"? Has it always been this way? As far as I can tell, it is pretty much internationally accepted. Odd, no? Do they still have the ability to bestow cool in the really freezing parts of the US (I think basically Brooklyn and parts of the Lower East Side) and London?

Anyway, I heard that Saddam Hussein's son Odai, I believe, had aspirations to be a fashion designer. He often walked into military banquets with his own creations, one of the most famous of which was a blazer jacket with a single sleeve.

Thom Browne Short Trousers

I can never remember to roll my trousers up and they don't seem to sell that clip thing here in China (though they no doubt produce it). I have mangled several trousers ankles, but I am also am too lazy to worry about it.

I'm going over to a Thom Browne length of trouser. All those jokes about the length failed to grasp their practicality.

I ride a bike every day though.

Anyway, these days everyone knows thom browne anyway. His photo is even in obscure direct marketing magazines in second-tier chinese cities. People will probably just say: "Ah, the Thom Browne look." I will say "Yes, it works for bicycling." I'll come off as balsy, fashionable, and practical. It's hard to be all three.

People who oppose browne probably don't believe in global warming. If they did, they would see the need for trouser lengths that prepare for the increased amount of flooding that will affect low level urban areas over the next seven decades. They would also immediately see that this length of trousers is perfect for bicycling, which is a way of cutting down on carbon emissions.

Suburbanites with their high-consumption lifestyles and automobiles are the ones whose trousers break.


When I first saw the Thom Browne trousers, my reaction was "wow, they're really running out of ideas; that's clearly just for the runway and a few fashion slaves in Lower Manhattan" as any sensible person might think. Not that I come close to being sensible, but I'm quite sure that most on this forum do.

Then, yesterday, I was forced into a pair of trousers that an incompetent tailor had shortened by about an inch and a half more than he should have. I had requested "no-break" but some Chinese tailors overcompensate when faced with requests that they deem nonsensical. It may also be that the extra inch I have put on around my waist forced me to pull the trousers up by an extra inch to a region that is still slimish. It so happened, that literally all of my other non-suit trousers that aren't in loud plaids were at the laundry or in that pile I haven't touched for three months that should be going to the laundry.

So, I rode and walked around in these too-short trousers all day and, in fact, found it to be quite liberating and convenient.

Mesh

All I can say is that I wish I had been the guy who realized Beijing needed a stylish but chilled-out lounge. What an utterly simple and obvious and yet necessary concept! But really, the city lacked a nice to place to have a chat where there was a decent crowd of inoffensive looking people before Mesh.

The strategy of making it slightly gay was also right on the money. It's like gentrification. I wouldn't live in a neighborhood that hadn't been okayed first by the chic, homophile set.

Nonetheless, I do feel something of a sheep when I go there. But is there really another option in this city?