Clairine

I went for a wedding dinner last night. No, not those grand types in a hotel. Just a small dinner party at a neighbourhood house. And I noticed something that really just hit me. Chinese people don’t wear cheongsams. To be more specific… Chinese ladies don’t wear cheongsams. They just don’t. Malaysians, ask yourselves: When was the last time you saw a Chinese woman wearing a cheongsam? Ok, now ask yourself this: When was the last time you saw a Malay woman wearing a baju kurung? Ah. (Everyday lah this one). And how about an Indian woman? Wearing a saree?

My point: Chinese women don’t wear cheongsams.

My theory is cheongsams are either too expensive, too hard to maintain, or Chinese people simply just think they’re old-fashioned. But these theories have immediate objections. Too expensive? Come on. Chinese ladies can tote around their LV’s and Gucci’s and Prada’s and say that cheongsams are expensive? I don’t think so. What about hard to mantain? Then saree’s…are easy to maintain, is it? Theory #2 strike out. Now, what about old-fashioned? That’s why these outfits are called traditional garments. Key word: traditional.

Ok, so striking out all the 3 theories I introduced just now, I’d like to bring up the final theory that has got me satisfied as to why Chinese ladies don’t wear cheongsams. They’re fat. Yup. In saree’s and baju kurung’s, you can’t really see those layers of flab and fat. But cheongsams, being tight-fitting by nature… you can’t really hide the fact that you’re fat as a cow. Ok. Lousy theory, but it sorta makes sense, no? In cheongsams, you can only truly look good if you are tall and thin with a waif-like figure. No? I don’t know. So basically it’s like a domino effect. Everyone doesn’t wear cheongsams, so no one wears cheongsams anymore.

Baju kebaya’s are lovely. You see ladies wearing them now and then.

Saree’s are equally lovely. Indian ladies wear ‘em all the time, in church/temples.

And… you know what? It’s too difficult to find a lovely picture of a lady wearing a cheongsam. I searched for close to an hour on the web for a nice picture of a full-length cheongsam. Very difficult. I couldn’t get a full-length one. You’ll just have to settle with these pictures:

She wore a super-busty cheongsam (bustier than this) at Cannes 2 years ago. I didn’t like that one.

Errm… not quite what I was looking for.

A bit too traditional.

This is a bit more like it.

Hmm… modernised version. Sex-ified.

Movie still from The 3rd Generation.

Ok… I give up. It’s too difficult to find nice pictures of celebrities in cheongsams. Go watch 2046 and/or The 3rd Generation to know what I mean. Cheongsams are beautiful. Chinese ladies/girls who can wear cheongsams, should wear them more often. It’s part of the culture. You won’t know how good you look in it until you try it!

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 12th, 2006 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.