Cute. Rotund, brightly-coloured...generally happy. What ARE these? An array of piggy banks, coffee mugs, and other generally impractical but interesting stationary pieces sold at an underground subway mall that is similar to the PATH (for those of you from Toronto).

So I'm going to talk about the concept of 'cute' here. Why is it done? I haven't figured it out yet. How? Everywhere. Just absolutely everywhere here. The girls embrace it. Clothes are frilly and laced with bows and flowers, all pastel in colours. Car seats...yes, adult car seats, have doily-laced flowery seat covers. Umbrellas are adorned with flowers. Toys look chubby and huggable. In fact, it seems, mainly from a female standpoint at least, the women here favour looking like prepubescent, underdeveloped girls, putting up two fingers to pose 'cutely' in a photo, wearing everything in an 'adorable' fashion. This pretend-innocence is something a Westerner is not used to. Especially if said Westerners are used to getting flashed R-rated images and raunchy 'sexy' ads overtly from the moment they learn to speak. This over-the-top girliness really seems to be the opposite of what we're exposed to. However, I do not believe for a moment it makes the Chinese any less scandalous. It just means they are more covert about it. Which just makes them more crafty! My conclusion? I could never ever fit into their preference of frilly femininity, but humans are all just as scandalous, whether it's lace or leather.