Summer

The Presumption: it’s hot and it’s humid. People want to get undressed and keep cool. Summer is a great time to see girls bounce around in short skirts and bikini tops.

The Reality: girls dress in exactly the same way but the men pull their shirts up and walk around with their bellies exposed.

Yes it’s sad but true. The only skin you’re going to be seeing for the next three months is the sagging, middle-aged gut of Mr. Wang as he barks on his cell phone and picks his other ear with an elongated pinkie nail. It extends to the construction workers, taxi drivers, students and even the local entrepreneur s; when the sun comes out every male in Beijing has an overwhelming urge to roll up the front of their shirts and get some air. It didn’t bother me until this happened:

I had just got back to my building and entered the elevator on the Ground floor. I lived on the 15th. On the 3rd floor the doors opened and two heavily-set men entered. They stood one to either side of me, both with polo shirts rolled up past their nipples, exposing their bald, sagging paunches. They sported buzz-cuts, were pock-marked and both held ice-creams. The aluminium door was obscured by their hairless bellies which seemed to have eclipsed everything else in the elevator. I looked up to my right as a stony face sanding an ice-cream down with great lion-licks of a rough tongue stared back. I looked to my left and saw exactly the same thing. They said nothing to each other. They just stared at me and ate their ice creams in mirrored-unison. It seemed to last for hours; these two swollen men eating their ice-creams. 9th floor… 10th floor... One of them snorted then continued with his frozen snack. Their bellies were so smooth, as if they had fat babies strapped to their torsos.
12th floor… 13th floor… It was like being in a David Lynch movie. I would have burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation had I not been fearful for my life regarding these bald-crested Goliaths.
14th floor…15th floor…The doors opened but they made no effort to move for me. I had to squeeze through this gorge of flab which encased me like a warm duvet as I wormed my way between them and out the doors. I looked around to see them still staring, pock-marked and emotionless with their bellies and their ice-cream. Then the doors closed.

I fell to my knees and prayed for winter.

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