Woes of a curvy woman in China

Today I took another long walk, this time the goal was to find some warm weather clothing. All I brought with me to China was Winter clothing, and it is really warming up here these past few days. The weather this weekend was spectacular!

I also wanted to get some workout gear so I can start running again now that I've settled in here. On my walk I happened upon a Nike store AND an Adidas store. I'm not 100% sure the merchandise was legit. The Nike swoosh (swish?) on the shoes looked a little hokey, but who knows. The Adidas stuff looked good, so I tried to find some shoes there. I wear a size 40 but they only carry shoes up to size 39. Dang! I took a look at the mens shoes but decided against buying some. I left the store and went on my way. I knew somewhere up ahead was the Carrefour, which is a huge mall type of place, and was hoping they'd have larger shoes.

I was wrong.

But I did find some capri type of pants and lightweight tops. I had to buy the pants in XL and they are still a little snug! I have hips, there's no mistaking it. But dang. I left the mall feeling very huge. Even my hands feel humongous after not fitting into some of the pockets.

On the bright side, I now know the Mandarin word for "big" and how to emphasize it like so, "biiIIIIIggGGGGGer!!!" because that's what every single salesperson said in disbelief as I tried on clothing after clothing that were too small. It's as if I was a giant freak of nature that they could not believe had somehow managed to squeeze herself into their store to go shopping.

I also needed to buy a sports bra for running. Talk about mission impossible. No one seems to sell sports bras. I got very good at miming it since I don't know how to say it in Mandarin. It goes something like this...

Point at your boobs. Run in place. Point at your boobs. Run in place.

I'm amazed that every single salesperson understood this.

I returned home feeling somewhat successful and more than somewhat large. Tonight I decided to return to the Adidas store, and I purchased size 40 men's running shoes. They don't look all that manly.

Despite having big hips, big bones, big feet, big hands, and big butt, there are two things that I do have in common with many Chinese women...

I will have no problem finding a bra my size.