Summers in Beijing are unbelieveably hot and oppressive. A lot of people complain that the air is thick with pollution, but it's really more about the lack of wind in the region. I swear the same air is over the city today that showed up 2 weeks ago. No rain, no breeze, and 95-to-100 degrees F. every single day. It's just like a friend wrote me: you know something's wrong when you wake up in a hot sweat because the temperature outside is 89...at 8 o'clock in the morning.
Yet summer's become my favorite season in Beijing because of the wild variety of English- language message t-shirts popularized by young people in the city. They're typically worn by high school students who want everyone to know how much they love English.
So here are some of my choices for the coolest message t-shirts I've seen this season -- and, like everything else in this blog, you can't make this stuff up:
SORRY I'M LATER
SWEET FLAVOR ROUGH TASTE
HURRY UP I CAN HEAR THE POLICE COMING
GET RICH AND SPEND MONEY
ALWAYS WEAR WHITE AND CLEAN
YOU HAVE NO REASON TO REFUSE MY REQUEST
SEXY CRACK KING HOODIE
and finally,
YOU CANNOT STOP MY PARTY
The kids -- and some adults -- don't always know what the words on their shirts, hats and handbags really say, and some of the messages are prone to contextual errors and typos. But that's what makes reading English in China fun.
More Chinese should try it. If they did, maybe people might quit trying to stop the party and want to join it instead.
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