Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Productivity Tip for Busy Mothers

I saw an interesting post about the 开档裤 (kāi dàng kù). Bet you cannot guess what is it? I give you some hints.

1) This is an apparel for boys only.

2) When we were kids in the kampong, my mother liked to play cards like 'say sik' (four colours) or 'tai chi' (大字??) with the neighbours; mostly housewives. I noticed that some of her friends were too busy to attend to their sons' "personal needs" (as we say in Industrial Engineering jargon). So they sewed this type of garment for their children (boys only).

Still cannot guess. Then go to this website for the answer. Guarantee you will ROTFL. ( In case some of the 'laudie' readers do not know, that means Roll On The Floor Laughing. Thanks to Chris for teaching me this word)

Thank goodness, my mum never forced us to wear such pants. Now I know why my sister often told his son to sit properly and don't 'open coffee shop'.

6 comments:

iml said...

I was throughly disgusted when I first saw it on my first trip to Kunming China.

fuzzoo said...

I think they still wear this in China. When I was in Shanghai one winter, I saw a heavily padded baby with a round hole in his pants exposing his butt. So he was kept warm except for his butt!

Anonymous said...

Someone (PRC friend) actually gave my son one of those! Although we saw the point of such an outfit, we couldn't bring ourselves to put it on him.

Lam Chun See said...

HH: I suppose your PRC friend was from a big city. That's surprising becos I thot only the the rural folks would do that. In big city you cannot pee at any old place, unlike in the countryside.

Anonymous said...

Mr Lam
Yup, my friend is a city dweller. I think they use these things in the city too. Like Fuzzoo, I have seen children in Shanghai using such clothes. I guess it's no big deal to them.

Anonymous said...

This topic stirs up memories of visits to PRC. This type of children apparels come about through sheer neccesity of time saving when parents are struggling for a living. Just to quote an incident, when I was in Quilin (1989), a kid was playing under a scaffolding. A passing European tourist on seeing the cute kid handed him an apple to eat.
Guess what happen ? The poor kid's mother had to climb down from the scaffolding from a great height to thank the tourist. We should be thankful to be borned in a place called Singapore.