China Segment

Just out for a stroll in pajamas.

The eternal debate about why Shanghai residents wear pajamas outdoors continues unabated… many of us have given up asking, but every new foreigner to Shanghai thinks they have it figured out. I’ve asked many locals and they seem to have different answers. I think I’ve seen it in other cities, but I’ve also been told it’s a fairly local phenomenon. Send word if you’re getting the jammie show in another city (or country).

Let’s run down the possibilities as to why people in Shanghai wear pajamas. Many of the following answers contradict each other, while others could overlap. I personally don’t support any of them. In no particular order:

-no money for more clothes, also leading to the habit of many Shanghainese to where the same outfit two or three days in a row before washing them
-with a large migrant population, the locals want to express that this is their ‘hood; it’s gang colors, pajama style
-laziness, as in too lazy to change… yet a vast majority of the time they’re wearing underwear beneath, and in the winter, long johns and what look like sweaters under the jam jams…so…
-laziness again, as in too lazy to do a load (laundry)
-they’re thinking of pajamas as just any other form of clothes, despite the Chinese word 睡衣, shuĭyī, which literally means ’sleep clothes’)
-fashion statement
-a lack of self-awareness when it comes to looks
-comfort
-a shout out to the world, ‘I can do what I want!’

Regardless of the reason, wearing pajamas in public certainly sends a message to other people. As a Canadian, I generally see it in a negative light. The only people I’d see doing something similar back home were students on campus, and it wasn’t exactly silk, polka-dotted stuff. Pajamas are for sleeping in, and that’s it. I’m assuming that people who wear them outdoors also lay around the house in the same way. It doesn’t seem as if a person is a productive type when they can’t be bothered to put on something else. And in a country where tops and pants can be purchased for 20 rmb, the lack of clothes argument doesn’t really work. Of course Chinese people see it in a different light, and some of the above reasons are ones that have been mentioned to me. Some are embarrassed by it, some don’t care, and some do it themselves. I guess it’s just another example of how the stodgy, proper British gentleman of Holmes’ day would be shocked at how care-free and comfortable the Chinese can be and how they present themselves to the world. Their norms are different from the Anglo ones I’ve inherited.

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