The other day, I went shopping with Case. We were in a clothing market called Yashow. He was looking for a large purse that would look masculine. We were purusing the wares of fake Dolce & Gabana and Chloe purses trying to find the "masculine" one. He didn't care if it actually was a feminine purse, he wanted it to look masculine when he carried it.
Which presents a problem in China. A couple of them. Firstly, there is no such thing. It's all Coach and Prada. It's all shiny and very, very fake. It's all intended to be carried by women. Second, men regularly carry around the bags of their girlfriends/wives/cousins/friends. Seeing a man walking down Xi Da Wang Lu with a bright pink Hello Kitty purse is so common that I don't even flinch anymore.
"It's just going to look like you're carrying your girlfriends purse," I advised him.
He agreed; we moved on.
Men of all ages can be seen participating in this phenomenon. Is it lost chilvary making a comeback? It is a petite Chinese girl's inability to carry all the crap she needs? Is is simply a desire to blaze a trail toward new gender roles? Who knows. But I'm apt to say that it is PART of their gender role.
Which is saying that the roles of men and women in China are completely different from where I come from. When I arrived on this blessed soil, I was SHOCKED to see many, many men walking around holding hands. In Dongyang, China, it is quite natural for two men to hold hands in a very familiar, comfortable, and informal way when doing just about anything. I remember one specific instance when I was walking back from the supermarket or some other trip beyond the barriers of my "apartment". I was behind two guys who were about 16 years old. They were holding hands and smoking cigarettes (another gender role; about 90% of men and teenage boys smoke while only about 10% of girls and women smoke). They only released the grip to enter a shop to purchase more cigarettes.
I stared.
Even though I'm completely accustomed due to my friendship choices to witnessing people of the same sex holding hands or showing affection, in this Communist territory, I didn't expect it. So I stared waiting for some other sign of homosexuality. Of course, none presented itself. And the casualness with which they treated the action only proved to me that they were not, in fact, gay. Just friends.
The way women treat this custom transcends the level of sophistication of the city. In Beijing, one will never ever see men holding hands. I've looked everywhere, but unless you're patronizing the ridiclously expensive, exclusive, and solitary gay bar, it's just not a common sight. Women holding hands, however, are everywhere. In fact, my Chinese girl friends regularly make it a habbit to link arms with me while walking somewhere.
All of this indicated a completely different level of acceptability of the rules of "friendship" and "relationship". A completely different custom regarding gender roles.
Which is why I find it extremely odd that my students are so perplexed by kilts.
We're studying Scotland in my culture class. And, of course, we discussed the custom of wearing kilts. We also watched "The Queen" where they saw men wearing kilts constantly. But still, when I asked them to make a sentence using their vocabulary words, every single one of them wrote about women wearing kilts in Scotland.
I spent time in every class explaining that kilts are ONLY worn by men. And that if it's on a woman then it's just a skirt. To which they all laughed. And then changed their sentences to, "I think it must be very strange for men to wear kilts in Scotland."
