Hot hot hot
(Square with sellers and people mingling: Nanxun)
This day was not sunny, but even with cloud cover, it was exceptionally muggy and humid. In Britain, sometimes if men get too hot, they just strip off down to the waist –but not here. As you can see, they employ a ‘rolling-up’ technique that baffles me. Does it actually feel any cooler? Another trick is rolling up the sleeves of a t-shirt like little shoulder caps to expose more skin to the heat. I suppose if they take off their t-shirts completely, they may end up brown as a berry like the man next to his bicycle trailer, crouching down in the background. He’s an example of the darker country workers who spend so much time in the sun, they end up a rich shade of brown.
This man was in the square with his son who was just as luxuriously brown; they were sat with a trailer of melons and other fruit ready to sell, but out of shot there is much competition. To be honest, his practice for staying cool makes more sense to me; stay in the shade and remove enough clothes to allow the skin to breathe. However, I don’t think I will be adopting this approach – I attract enough attention already.
It occurred to me yesterday that there are no pigeons in China! They have such a strong presence in the pedestrian streets of central Glasgow, but are really completely absent from Suzhou as far as I recall. I possibly remember hearing a seagull or two in Shanghai, but I never saw one. If they know what’s best, they are probably hiding from certain people who might catch them for purposes I can only guess at.
