Liuzhou Anthroplogy

Well, you are probably wondering what evidence I can provide to support this astonishing claim. Easy.

I was sitting on my favourite corner this afternoon, watching the world go by. I was beginning to suffer from serious whiplash as I spun my head to watch all the absolutely gorgeous women who walked past. Beautiful, elegant, cool, sexy, stylish.

(I have to mention here that I was merely observing out of academic interest. I have already married the most beautiful, elegant, cool, sexy, stylish woman in all of China! I have to say that! She reads this.)

Just as I was thinking of making an appointment with the local neck specialist or having an emergency 'haircut', I happened to spot something out of the corner of my eye. There was a man in his mid-thirties standing yelling into his mobile phone.

"Wei! Wei! Wei!"

He was fashionably dressed in the standard garb. Shapeless greyish-blue trousers with the waistband around his nipples and the crotch around his knees. From his belt hung the obligatory bunch of keys. His shoes were slip-ons bearing hideous gold flim flam. And of course, he was carrying a handbag.

But what really topped it all off and added that certain je ne sais quoi was the shocking pink crash helmet he was wearing.

I broke with tradition and started observing the males. Now, I do not claim to be the height of fashion or elegance myself, but there are limits. All the women I saw had obviously shopped and dressed with care and taste. All the men had obviously borrowed their elder, and much stockier brothers' cast off rags.

I had intended illustrating this little rant with a more balanced selection of pictures of both species, but I didn't have my camera with me and to my astonishment, while I have filed hundreds of pictures of the local female species, I seem to have mislaid my pictures of the males.

I may have more to say on this theory later.