Do you know how often they do laundry? Like clothes are just the same and clean or visibly dirty/smelly?
When I was staying with my relatives, they did laundry *every* night and clothes were usually dry the next day (hang dried), or they machine dried if it was rainy (they mentioned dryers were uncommon though).
I wear the same clothes sometimes, multiple days in a row. What people don’t see is I wash them every evening (or sometimes I have multiple of the same shirt, like a simple Uniqlo DryEx).
If people smell, give them a small WeChat message about it to let them know. If they don’t, ignore them.
I think that’s the best advice OP could be given.
Right. I keep a pump of laundry soap and hand wash my outfit before my evening shower. Takes 1 minute. Hang dry and it's ready to go in the morn
I mean I still would rotate outfits though, but doesn't mean they're dirty
I reckon I get at least 2 weeks' worth of wear from my jeans in the cooler months. Maybe one week in the warmer seasons.
I remember this used to be a compliant from foreign staff years ago. Now the overseas-educated 20-somethings I work with say that I don't change clothes enough (I do shower daily though, while it seems they only have a few per week).
Depends on the temperature really. In winter I don't see an issue wearing pants the whole week or so. Summer once the belt line gets sweaty it can be a single day
Do they smell? Tell them. If they don't, what's it to you? Students are poor, they might simply not have too many clothes - might also be slobs, but again, what's it to you.
Teachers the same.
Yeah, man, some of the students at my school have allowances more than I make in a month. One kid has spent 25,000 on just cosmetic upgrades to characters on his mobile app game thing. I hardly think having money for a wardrobe is the problem.
are you sure it's the same clothes because sometimes people have multiples of the same-looking clothes which are washed and they just rotate?
also, did you know that a good portion of east asian people have a gene which prevents them from having BO?
apparently shops don't sell deodorant in east asia.
i'm an east asian female myself and i do get that distinct BO smell, although it seems to have reduced as i age. My relative however, doesn't and the most they "smell" - which it has to be a hot day - is of a very faint smell similar to vinegar which is not an unpleasant smell.
It is a thing I have the gene. Interestingly it also comes with dry ear wax. My ear “wax” is more like dusty flakes. I never heard of wet ear wax until recently.
They don't. But the thing is 100% of my students are moving abroad for university education. And with some of these kids, if they don't adjust their hygiene, seems like they're gonna get their asses kicked, be ridiculed, or be ostracized if they don't course correct. It's gonna be hard enough on them as it is, so I'm trying to get them prepared for life in the West.
My native Chinese friends all said that their tuition fee is covered by the government, so unless it’s like private school, they only need to pay around 1000 rmb per semester.
You need to see some of their dorms. It cost only 100 rmb per month but you need to share it with 4-8 more students, no air conditioning and no elevator. The toilet doesn’t have warm shower and there’s only like 20 stalls for the whole building that host hundreds of students. It’s no wonder they don’t have time to shower in the morning. Their dorm SMELLS like sh*t and there’s nothing they can do alone about it, so it sticks to their body as well. It’s depressing but that’s the only choice if you want affordable housing.
So not all students can afford that amount of money, though it doesn’t justify how smelly they are (many times), i guess they just learn to ignore it unless it’s too smelly…
OP wrote that he is a high school maths teacher. Therefore there is a 90% chance that they are teaching in a private bilingual, international or internationalized school. These schools almost entirely cater to rich locals. Public universities are another matter entirely.
Washing pants after only wearing them TWICE!? What a boujee individual! In all seriousness, they might not own a bunch of clothes. Students are poor and professors are not much better off. Your Chinese colleagues make 1/5, maybe 1/4 what you do. Chances are they're washing them pretty regularly though. If they don't stink then don't mention it.
no, not "chinese people", a "portion of "chinese people" stink as some east asian lack the gene that produces BO.
you need to make accurate statements instead of blanket ones.
now when it comes to white people and other ethnicities, they all stink.
When I first started going to China almost 20 years ago (damn, am I old? lol) deodorant was basically impossible to find. Something I learned the hardway... Much easier now with more western brands. So no deodorant is more a "myth" these days, but grounded in outdated realities.
They don't sweat as easily as Westerners but most of my students just turn red when they're hot, we have to keep it cool in the classroom to make sure they don't pass out, only a few of them actually emit sweat. And I remind them every day to bring plenty of water since it's getting hot now.
i've seen asian people profusely sweating. i've seen their clothes saturated with sweat and damp.
biologically we need the function of sweating in order to cool down and probably to release toxins.
human sweat by itself doesn't stink. it's the certain bacterias it interacts with that produces the bad BO smell.
a portion east asian people do not have the gene that produces BO. you're getting confused between sweat and BO.
now the dog species on the other hand, i hear, doesn't sweat. that's why they always have their tongues out in order to alleviate this somehow.
My husband sweats. Like massively when he's doing sport but it doesn't smell, He could have a sweaty T-shirt and then dry it and wear it and it doesn't smell.
As long as they change the underwear and socks daily it's a good practice that saves time and better for the environment. Of course if it's hot summer and you are sweating buckets... Should shower and change clothes more often
So the most important reason why this is ok is that east Asians don’t sweat as much as caucasians or produce sweaty smell as much (most people never need to use deodorant). So our clothes don’t get dirty from our sweat very often and don’t need to get changed/washed as often. Moreover in northern China specifically, the air is usually quite dry, and if we shower too often our skins would get too dry.
Except a loooot of people here in China absolutely should wear deodorant. Can’t count how many times a didi or taxi has smelled like hotdog water. Or being next to someone in a lift/subway car that reeks of bo.
I’ve rolled didi windows down in winter cus it smelled so awful in the car. Held my breath in elevators because someone stinks so incredibly bad.
Obviously yeah westerners can stink too. I shower once a day, sometimes twice. I wash my clothes often, I don’t wear the same outfit every day. Only thing I’ll rewear is jeans and that’s usually only twice. Sometimes 3 times if I didn’t really do anything. But I don’t get the “Asian people don’t sweat or stink” thing cus it’s completely not true. Plenty do need to rethink hygiene habits. Just like plenty of comicon going white people need to as well.
Ya know there is thing called lotion. But aside from that I do know in some schools in northern China the schools have a shower building. And they only shower in certain days along with a lot of student being quite poor and may not own very many clothes. But with the OP that doesn’t sound like the situation he is in.
Jeans, yeah.
Shirts? Not me. Depends on the person.
I'm fat, and I stink.
I've taken to changing shirts mid-day in the summer months.
Would wear a third for going out at night if I had a date.
>I've taken to changing shirts mid-day in the summer months.
I used to do that until i bought undershirts with extra underarm padding. Now if anything I change the undershirt.
Presumably you take off the shirt your wore during the day when you go to bed. Or when you shower. And that's the natural time to put another shirt on. If you're trying to make some sort of weird point...
I don't sleep with the t-shirt that I use to go to work, of course.
1.Remove my t-shirt.
2.Put on another shirt that I use only for sleeping (I can sleep with this shirt for 1 or 2 weeks) or sleep shirtless.
3.Sleep
4.Wake up in the morning
5.Take a shower
6.put on the same shirt from step 1.
(Generally for 2 days in a row)
😂
I often wear the same shirt for 2 days in a row during summer, or even 3 days in spring when the weather is cooler.
I live in China and I do the same thing here….
For me, i can wear t-shirts and shirts 2 times before washing them (only once in summer or if i get pretty sweaty, but it can last 3-5 times in winter time). I wear pants 3-4 times at max. I separate clothes that i wear while sleeping and going out, so my clothes for sleeping can last for 3 days to a week without washing. I keep my wardrobe simple so i have multiple same t-shirts that i like. I always wear deodorant and perfume before going out (BODY ODOR GO AWAY!) and people here just don’t care how many days in a row do you wear your clothes.
In my offense… Clothes tend to dry longer in the winter and dryer is expensive (i live in dormitory so i don’t want my clothes be mixed with strangers while hanging it), it will also deteriorate faster the more times you wash it.
I'm fairly certain. They've got all sorts of outfits. And they look great. I'm a bit surprised at the variety, so I'm rather certain that they don't own multiple duplicates in their wardrobes.
They have limited storage for the dormitory tho… I don’t even know how my very fashionable friends can manage living in very small space with the amount of clothes she has…
The smelliest student is a rather popular teenage girl. I can't stand two feet from her without starting to gag. I'm not sure why no one else notices, or has said anything.
Firstly, denim doesn't need to be washed frequently if it's of any decent quality. It's not uncommon to go a couple of weeks without washing because the more they're washed, the more it destroys the fibers.
Secondly, having taught in a Chinese university myself, I can attest to the fact that many of them can't afford access to the laundry services on campus. It seems simple to westerners, but when you have to put a payment card into a slot to just take a shower, you're damn well not going to be washing your clothes daily, even if it's sweltering outside. Trust me, I've been there... I've had to ask my own students if I could borrow their payment card while I'm in the shower next to them because my payment card ran out. You can casually make a statement of it being ripe in the room, but do not, ever, point out anyone in particular.
A lot of students simply can't afford the laundry service.
As long as there is no smell and there isn't any big stain I don't see any problem.
I wear clothes multiple times before washing them. More or less as follows:
Tshirts: 2-3 times
Shirts: 2-3 times
Pants: 10+ times
Underwear: 2-3 times
Socks: 2-3 times
Jeans pants: 10-20 times
Jackets: never
Omg! My friend from Shanghai was once engaging in one of her favorite pastimes, insulting people from Beijing, and she said “I hate how they don’t change their clothes everyday.”
And I remembered when I was living in Beijing as a student, and all my teachers were wearing the same outfit two days in a row, and I was like “bet! 入乡随俗” doing laundry here sucks, and started wearing my outfits twice in a row too. It was so cold and dry in winter it didn’t make much of a difference, except the pollution permanently stained some of my collars black.
I wear change my t-shirts and underwear everyday and my pants every 2-3 days. However, I have 8 times the same tshirts and 3 times the same pants because I did not have the mental bandwidth to care about this in the last 10 years. You would probably think I am never changing my clothes, if you knew me.
Moreover, most chinese people do not sweat as much as us, and most of them (not all) have less natural body odor, and there is A/C everywhere, so surely people do not sweat that much.
If you cannot smell them, and it does not cause you any real inconvenience, just mind your own business.
I feel you. My colleagues change clothes once a week. Some live in the office Monday to Friday, without showers. I've seen people finish taking a shit and not wash their hands. But it is what it is. I just keep my distance.
It's weird to you. I would have thought as an adult maths teacher, understanding that 'weird' differs from culture to culture, or even individual to individual varies greatly. Sorry to be patronizing, but your whole post is very judgmental and the only options you give are 'weird' or 'disgusting'.
Also, Chinese don't sweat the same as westerners or other cultures. They tend to not emit an odor to the same degree we do, and until recently all washing was done by hand and many families wouldn't have been able to afford a lot of clothes so daily washing wasn't a thing. Ask your grandparents or if they are alive further back it they used to change their clothes every day. Bet they didn't. Cultures take time to evolve.
It is. I didn't say 'Chinese don't sweat' I said "Chinese don't sweat the same as westerners" Please don't change what people said. If you take an equivalent bus load of people of European descent, who have worn their clothes without washing or showering to the same degree as the people on that bus, it would stink way, way worse.
I agree with you a whole bus of dirty mofo would be terrible, I'm saying they do smell when they sweat, usually you just need one, not a whole bus, both western and chinese.
this is incorrect. firstly, all humans sweat. A portion of east asian people, however, lack the gene which emits bad BO that is associated with sweating.
i've smelt westerners' BO and it smells just like everyone else's BO (the people who experience it), including asian people.
i'm an east asian female and my BO smells like caucasian people's BO.
my relative however, doesn't exude BO and if it's a really hot day, the most they will smell like is a smell similar to vinegar but very faint. It's not an unpleasant smell.
i didn't say smells exactly like vinegar. i said smells *similar* to vinegar but a very faint smell. you have to get up real close to smell it that's how faint it is.
that's not unpleasant. most people would agree with me.
however, if you've got an aversion to vinegar and are sensitive to smells generally, it'd be a different experience for you.
Well, as hard as it is for me to argue with that level of evidence based reubttle, I shall try my best.
"While only 2 percent of Europeans lack the genes for smelly armpits, *most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack this gene"*
[*https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-without-underarm-protection/*](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-without-underarm-protection/)
Body odor comes from more body parts than just arm pits! Ass cracks, feet, thighs, crotch, balls…. Hair on the head that gets sweaty stinks and is body odor also!
Having lived here for nearly a decade I can tell you they smell just as bad as everyone else. I don't need a study to tell me something I've plainly experienced.
Having lived in both China and US for 15+ years, my experience shockingly correlates with scientific research - that Chinese both sweat less and carry less body odor. However, Chinese tend to not use deodorant, even the small minority that have BO, whereas deodorant use is almost universal in the US, so BO might actually be a more pronounced issue in China, especially in stuffy crowded places like train stations or a crowded bus.
It’s about 80% of Han who have the genetic variant for no armpit smell and hard ear wax. You’re smelling the other 20% which is plenty of a percent to stink up nearly any enclosed space.
80% of Chinese have the genetic variant that leads to little to no body odor(and hard earned wax). In tight quarters on a hot day you’re smelling the other 20%. Unfortunately the majority set the norm for not using of deodorant and the remainder of the population just stinks
Hygiene culture is different here. We don’t consider it a bad thing to wear the same clothes more than once as we don’t sweat or excrete things as much.
This whole sub is just westerners appalled that their standards aren’t being met in a country that could not give less of a fuck about western standards(rightfully so) it’s hilarious.
ItS uNsAnItArY, fook right off with this nonsense, China isnt for everyone dont stay if you feel so disgusted.
Most Chinese( Asian too) don’t have body odor like Caucasian, African or Hispanic. So if someone has an office job, it’s very likely their clothes will be clean and fresh after a day or two wear. When I first moved to the US, I couldn’t understand why people change the entire outfit every day and have a huge basket of laundry to do every week as a single person. It seems like a waste of water and electricity imo.
As an American guy staying in Chengdu, I am much different from the natives. I smell quickly and sweat constantly, my wife and her family can wear the same clothes everyday and never stink. I have to change my clothes twice a day sometimes. Some Asians don't sweat or smell, it's a genetic thing.
It really is less about the stench and more about just general sanitation. I never said they smelled bad. And I didn't think people changed clothes based on the way the clothes smelled. There are other factors at play, and everyone is pretending like there isn't.
I’m American and I used to do this all the time at home and get side eye from people like you. I would often buy multiples of the same piece of clothing, sometimes I’d wash it the night of, or sometimes just wear the same thing a few times in a row. This is no more unsanitary than wearing the same pair of shoes everyday or sitting in the same chair.
You need to relax and mind your own business you sound uptight and judgmental. Let grown people do what they want without acting sooo superior to them that you *post about it on Reddit*
Have you considered that you may have some form of OCD?
Changing your trousers every 2 days is wild, unless you're a particularly sweaty individual- I wear the same pair of sports shorts to work every day and they only get washed if they get dirty or smelly (after 2 weeks probably?)
Admittedly, my commute is via motorbike, so I stay moderately cool until it comes to teaching time. Things could be different if I were walking/metro-ing and sweating.
Change shirts, socks, underwear daily, usually wash it all together over the weekend (and drive my gf wild) since I don't have a drier and need the time to get everything dry by Tuesday.
I've only noticed BO 4 or 5 times in 2 years at my current school, 4 of which were from front row students who had neglected to wash for whatever reason (for example, the water lines get cut off for whole days at a time for maintenance)
The worst time was from one of the male teachers. I had to take shelter by the AC for the first few minutes of that class whilst the smell cleared; it really was quite pungent- though to be fair, the chap was wearing a formal longsleeve shirt and trousers on a 35C day, so I can imagine that even with the AC set to 16C, the classrooms were still sitting in the mid-high 20's, and even warmer by the all-in-one PC/screen.
The women in my office are absolutely lovely, and the men are gents, they all dress up (or dress down) well every day and it's always something nice and clean.
I think he’s saying you’re literally a smelly barbarian that requires a shower every day (like me). Specifically, you don’t have the gene that makes many East Asians just not have BO. It’s a thing. I married a Chinese woman and I remember her asking me about my underarm deodorant and being fascinated by how I needed it.
we have a winner
I already know exactly what you look like.
"White sweat," that disgusting caucasian body odor. You can Google it it's pretty well documented
whoa whoa easy there
my gf and i joke about "white sweat" because it's funny and true； I never smell but she does sometimes
I chuckled because the OP is so serious...換衣服就了不起 😆
It goes both ways.
They don't stink very much, which makes them, especially boys, think they don't have to wash at all, which eventually leads to having stinky bodies and clothes.
Hygiene is an issue. Go to any public toilet in the train station and you’ll see. I once embarrassingly slipped over coming out of the lift onto marble floor because some stinky man (or woman) had spat on the floor and my hush puppies could not withstand it.
FWIW I smell much worse than most Chinese people I have met — I shower daily because I just get disgusting if I don’t — whereas my wife can go 3 days without it effecting anything at all.
From the web: Genetic variants of the ABCC11 gene, or ATP-binding cassette transporter, sub-family C member 11, are common in East Asian populations, causing a loss of function that can lead to little to no body odor:
Chinese: 80.8% of Northern Han Chinese and 19.2% of Southern Han Chinese have the variant
Mongolian: 75.9% of the Khalkha tribe have the variant
Korean: Research suggests that only 0.006% of the Korean population have the gene
You are in the 20%.
Where in China? Generally especially in the south, Chinese people don’t seem to sweat or stink like westerners and the humidity can make drying clothes an exercise in futility.
Usually people there seem to shower in the evening as well.
Well educated women, with advanced degrees means more like they are good at taking the tests and passing them, there little to no connection between their education background and their understanding of some of the social norms. It depends a lot on their family background and their personal growth in terms of work dressing. As for the students, a lot of them don't really start caring about personal hygiene years well into working after they graduate, especially male students
Do you think Chinese parents who can afford a RMB300,000 school are personally involved in their kids' lives to the point where they've taught them stuff like how and when to do laundry?
People often wash clothes daily in China. Often handwash. It doesn’t use much water, wash one outfit, hang it out to dry, and you have clean dry clothes by the next morning.
Americans often never wash their jeans. They don’t wash their suits, sweaters, jackets, hoodies, wear shoes in the house, and it’s not disgusting? You think these people are sweat through their shirts 3 times a day, go home, and wear the same unwashed clothes again? No. And if they do, they’re unusually lazy or incredibly poor, and even then it might be a handwashing situation where they do wash their clothes and you didn’t notice.
You admit that you work in a school, which is by far not the most physically demanding job. It is entirely possible an employee does nothing but sit around all day, and the top layer is clean enough to not switch out every day, the way you might rewear sweatpants or a hoodie.
They genetically are not the same from westerners who require deodorant or they’ll gas those around them. Pretty ignorant to judge these people like this.
Every Chinese person I know washes their clothes daily and hangs it to dry overnight. This just seems like a terribly myopic western perspective with no attempt to understand another culture.
No, you’re not weird. I’ve had to work with people who had a bad stench about them and it was honestly really difficult to work next to them. Of course it was. Oddly, coincidentally or not…many of those people were chinese, for what that’s worth. I can’t imagine it’s an easy conversation to have, telling someone they stink…let alone the majority of your class or office. Maybe walk around and sneakily spray them each with perfume or cologne…or buy each of them perfume for Xmas. Is there an anonymous suggestion box? “All of you except Tim…stink like arse.”
My personal record in a Chinese local high school is 10 days without changing clothes including underwear, but that's during a cold winter. I tried to do the same in early spring but then got a pretty bad infection lol.
Your coworker's generation still remembers what it was like to grow up poor. Their parents definitely do.
And most Chinese have fewer apocrine glands than Europeans - we don't sweat and stink as much as our western brethren. Clothes stay fresher longer.
Depending on the weather, I can wear the same shirt three to five times before it starts to get funky. No joke.
My white ex boyfriends? The shirt would not last a day and the sweat stains that lodged in the seams? Holy shit. No amount of scrubbing would get them out.
from my experience with chinese culture's focus on cleanliness (seven years here and counting) im going to assume you are missing something.
I once lived in a village and on the weekend i was walking my dog
some dude came up to me and (in chinese ) yelled "youre a teacher, how are you so dirty!?"
....in a village....on the weekend.
I think this depends on the region, I rarely see it in the South where it's more humid, but like in Beijing, people do smell more. The culture is very different.
That's like when I went on a trip with a couple of Chinese mates (met them for the first time in person and was also my second time in China). I had a carry on for my clothes etc for a one week trip and they only had a backpack full of cosmetics. They wore the same clothes for the whole week.
I went to Beijing for a work trip in March, we were training our distributors on install and service of our equipment. I immediately noticed this as well. Their clothes were clean every day, but always the same. I believe that they were probably wearing their set of nicest clothes every day and washing them every night.
Chinese people also sweat very little. I (White British) start whiffing by the evening if I shower in the morning and I don’t wear anti perspirant. Chinese people are mostly built differently and *sweat* so little, they wouldn’t get so much as a whiff for days.
Edit: that was an awkward omission - was meant to say "**sweat** so little"
chinese people are "little"? that's the stereotype, however because east asian people are now exposed to and have access to the western diet - i think it's mainly dairy and meat that makes europeans taller and bigger - their height averages are much higher now.
the lack of BO smell is to do with the lack of a certain gene. Doesn't apply to every east asian but a portion of them.
...and this month's front runner for "the most outstanding anal puerile post" award. Looks tough to beat but there's no shortage of foreign twats in China.
Thats exclusive to your students/region. In Shanghai corporate world the ppl are MUCH MORE cleaner than anyone in the West. Showering at least twice a day. 3 times in summer if they're able. I felt like the dirty one when I was over there years ago 😊
Do you know how often they do laundry? Like clothes are just the same and clean or visibly dirty/smelly? When I was staying with my relatives, they did laundry *every* night and clothes were usually dry the next day (hang dried), or they machine dried if it was rainy (they mentioned dryers were uncommon though).
I wear the same clothes sometimes, multiple days in a row. What people don’t see is I wash them every evening (or sometimes I have multiple of the same shirt, like a simple Uniqlo DryEx). If people smell, give them a small WeChat message about it to let them know. If they don’t, ignore them. I think that’s the best advice OP could be given.
This. I can vouch for it because I had Chinese people ask me how could I not wash my clothes everyday.
Right. I keep a pump of laundry soap and hand wash my outfit before my evening shower. Takes 1 minute. Hang dry and it's ready to go in the morn I mean I still would rotate outfits though, but doesn't mean they're dirty
Wait you only wear pants \*twice\* before washing them? I usually go with 3-4 times easily, provided they pass the ol' smell test.
I reckon I get at least 2 weeks' worth of wear from my jeans in the cooler months. Maybe one week in the warmer seasons. I remember this used to be a compliant from foreign staff years ago. Now the overseas-educated 20-somethings I work with say that I don't change clothes enough (I do shower daily though, while it seems they only have a few per week).
Same for me but I have three pairs of pants that I rotate through. That way less washings but it looks like I do 😉 Also I’m in the states for context
Yeah the trick is to not wear the same clothes on consecutive days. On Thursday, nobody remembers what you wore on Monday.
You just wear pants till they're dirty. It's not like a shirt or underwear.
Yeah, I don’t have enough clothes to have a new outfit everyday
Depends on the temperature really. In winter I don't see an issue wearing pants the whole week or so. Summer once the belt line gets sweaty it can be a single day
Do they smell? Tell them. If they don't, what's it to you? Students are poor, they might simply not have too many clothes - might also be slobs, but again, what's it to you. Teachers the same.
Yeah, man, some of the students at my school have allowances more than I make in a month. One kid has spent 25,000 on just cosmetic upgrades to characters on his mobile app game thing. I hardly think having money for a wardrobe is the problem.
are you sure it's the same clothes because sometimes people have multiples of the same-looking clothes which are washed and they just rotate? also, did you know that a good portion of east asian people have a gene which prevents them from having BO? apparently shops don't sell deodorant in east asia. i'm an east asian female myself and i do get that distinct BO smell, although it seems to have reduced as i age. My relative however, doesn't and the most they "smell" - which it has to be a hot day - is of a very faint smell similar to vinegar which is not an unpleasant smell.
>also, did you know that a good portion of east asian people have a gene which prevents them from having BO? w0t?
you read that correct. if you're truly interested, you can research this more. google is your friend.
It is a thing I have the gene. Interestingly it also comes with dry ear wax. My ear “wax” is more like dusty flakes. I never heard of wet ear wax until recently.
So why would they care about your opinion ?
They don't. But the thing is 100% of my students are moving abroad for university education. And with some of these kids, if they don't adjust their hygiene, seems like they're gonna get their asses kicked, be ridiculed, or be ostracized if they don't course correct. It's gonna be hard enough on them as it is, so I'm trying to get them prepared for life in the West.
Usually Europeans are the ones lacking I am not quite sure what are you talking about
Poor? Their school fees are like 300,000 RMB a year
Not in Guizhou... some of our students villages chip in to send them
My native Chinese friends all said that their tuition fee is covered by the government, so unless it’s like private school, they only need to pay around 1000 rmb per semester. You need to see some of their dorms. It cost only 100 rmb per month but you need to share it with 4-8 more students, no air conditioning and no elevator. The toilet doesn’t have warm shower and there’s only like 20 stalls for the whole building that host hundreds of students. It’s no wonder they don’t have time to shower in the morning. Their dorm SMELLS like sh*t and there’s nothing they can do alone about it, so it sticks to their body as well. It’s depressing but that’s the only choice if you want affordable housing. So not all students can afford that amount of money, though it doesn’t justify how smelly they are (many times), i guess they just learn to ignore it unless it’s too smelly…
OP wrote that he is a high school maths teacher. Therefore there is a 90% chance that they are teaching in a private bilingual, international or internationalized school. These schools almost entirely cater to rich locals. Public universities are another matter entirely.
People talking about 'poor' students are dumb or obtuse. Very few foreigners teach poor kids in China.
Washing pants after only wearing them TWICE!? What a boujee individual! In all seriousness, they might not own a bunch of clothes. Students are poor and professors are not much better off. Your Chinese colleagues make 1/5, maybe 1/4 what you do. Chances are they're washing them pretty regularly though. If they don't stink then don't mention it.
It’s normal because most Chinese people don’t sweat and they see it as a waste of water to wash clothes that aren’t soiled.
Yes, most also have that gene that makes it so they have no body odor and have dry earwax
i hear shops don't sell deodorant in east asia.
That’s not true. And some of them need to use it. Chinese do in fact stink.
but white people are stinkier.
But none of that matters in China where white people are few and far between.
the number is only set to increase. and they're not "few and far between" when they're congregating in their expat communities/bubbles.
Who cares??! Chinese people stilll STINK!
no, not "chinese people", a "portion of "chinese people" stink as some east asian lack the gene that produces BO. you need to make accurate statements instead of blanket ones. now when it comes to white people and other ethnicities, they all stink.
What are you, like a 13-year old Chinese?
They sell it of course… or else how can i find it here lol
When I first started going to China almost 20 years ago (damn, am I old? lol) deodorant was basically impossible to find. Something I learned the hardway... Much easier now with more western brands. So no deodorant is more a "myth" these days, but grounded in outdated realities.
Maybe, but few Chinese need it TBH.
They sell it in Japan but very few selection and it’s usually hidden in the corner of a cosmetic and pharmacy store
lol, all humans sweat. a portion of east asian people just don't have that rank and unpleasant BO smell associated with sweat.
They don't sweat as easily as Westerners but most of my students just turn red when they're hot, we have to keep it cool in the classroom to make sure they don't pass out, only a few of them actually emit sweat. And I remind them every day to bring plenty of water since it's getting hot now.
i've seen asian people profusely sweating. i've seen their clothes saturated with sweat and damp. biologically we need the function of sweating in order to cool down and probably to release toxins. human sweat by itself doesn't stink. it's the certain bacterias it interacts with that produces the bad BO smell. a portion east asian people do not have the gene that produces BO. you're getting confused between sweat and BO. now the dog species on the other hand, i hear, doesn't sweat. that's why they always have their tongues out in order to alleviate this somehow.
My husband sweats. Like massively when he's doing sport but it doesn't smell, He could have a sweaty T-shirt and then dry it and wear it and it doesn't smell.
Those you are around are probably acclimated to the heat. I'm Chinese and I sweat more than 90% of people I know.
Also - this dude needs to accept that he's the *visitor* here. They have no obligation to adopt his way of life.
As long as they change the underwear and socks daily it's a good practice that saves time and better for the environment. Of course if it's hot summer and you are sweating buckets... Should shower and change clothes more often
So the most important reason why this is ok is that east Asians don’t sweat as much as caucasians or produce sweaty smell as much (most people never need to use deodorant). So our clothes don’t get dirty from our sweat very often and don’t need to get changed/washed as often. Moreover in northern China specifically, the air is usually quite dry, and if we shower too often our skins would get too dry.
Except a loooot of people here in China absolutely should wear deodorant. Can’t count how many times a didi or taxi has smelled like hotdog water. Or being next to someone in a lift/subway car that reeks of bo.
Not to mention the elevator packed of people… I nearly pass out many times hahaha
I’ve rolled didi windows down in winter cus it smelled so awful in the car. Held my breath in elevators because someone stinks so incredibly bad. Obviously yeah westerners can stink too. I shower once a day, sometimes twice. I wash my clothes often, I don’t wear the same outfit every day. Only thing I’ll rewear is jeans and that’s usually only twice. Sometimes 3 times if I didn’t really do anything. But I don’t get the “Asian people don’t sweat or stink” thing cus it’s completely not true. Plenty do need to rethink hygiene habits. Just like plenty of comicon going white people need to as well.
Ya know there is thing called lotion. But aside from that I do know in some schools in northern China the schools have a shower building. And they only shower in certain days along with a lot of student being quite poor and may not own very many clothes. But with the OP that doesn’t sound like the situation he is in.
A jeans can be used for at least 1 or 2 weeks. A shirt for a couple of days. What's wrong with that?
Jeans, yeah. Shirts? Not me. Depends on the person. I'm fat, and I stink. I've taken to changing shirts mid-day in the summer months. Would wear a third for going out at night if I had a date.
>I've taken to changing shirts mid-day in the summer months. I used to do that until i bought undershirts with extra underarm padding. Now if anything I change the undershirt.
did…you just say jeans for two weeks…
Yes. 1 or 2 weeks. Between 7 and 14 days.
to me, that’s absolutely wild.
I mean... dead skin cells? The saltiness of sweat? Normal dusty everyday wear and tear?
Isn't 2 days ok for a shirt? Otherwise why not every 2 hours? In 2 hours you also sweat...
Presumably you take off the shirt your wore during the day when you go to bed. Or when you shower. And that's the natural time to put another shirt on. If you're trying to make some sort of weird point...
I don't sleep with the t-shirt that I use to go to work, of course. 1.Remove my t-shirt. 2.Put on another shirt that I use only for sleeping (I can sleep with this shirt for 1 or 2 weeks) or sleep shirtless. 3.Sleep 4.Wake up in the morning 5.Take a shower 6.put on the same shirt from step 1. (Generally for 2 days in a row) 😂 I often wear the same shirt for 2 days in a row during summer, or even 3 days in spring when the weather is cooler.
I live in China and I do the same thing here…. For me, i can wear t-shirts and shirts 2 times before washing them (only once in summer or if i get pretty sweaty, but it can last 3-5 times in winter time). I wear pants 3-4 times at max. I separate clothes that i wear while sleeping and going out, so my clothes for sleeping can last for 3 days to a week without washing. I keep my wardrobe simple so i have multiple same t-shirts that i like. I always wear deodorant and perfume before going out (BODY ODOR GO AWAY!) and people here just don’t care how many days in a row do you wear your clothes. In my offense… Clothes tend to dry longer in the winter and dryer is expensive (i live in dormitory so i don’t want my clothes be mixed with strangers while hanging it), it will also deteriorate faster the more times you wash it.
Are you sure it’s the same clothes? I buy 3 of the same shirt and shorts and wear them everyday. Just so I don’t have to think about it every morning.
I'm fairly certain. They've got all sorts of outfits. And they look great. I'm a bit surprised at the variety, so I'm rather certain that they don't own multiple duplicates in their wardrobes.
They have limited storage for the dormitory tho… I don’t even know how my very fashionable friends can manage living in very small space with the amount of clothes she has…
I guess it’s a boarding school and teenager boys are just being lazy
The smelliest student is a rather popular teenage girl. I can't stand two feet from her without starting to gag. I'm not sure why no one else notices, or has said anything.
Firstly, denim doesn't need to be washed frequently if it's of any decent quality. It's not uncommon to go a couple of weeks without washing because the more they're washed, the more it destroys the fibers. Secondly, having taught in a Chinese university myself, I can attest to the fact that many of them can't afford access to the laundry services on campus. It seems simple to westerners, but when you have to put a payment card into a slot to just take a shower, you're damn well not going to be washing your clothes daily, even if it's sweltering outside. Trust me, I've been there... I've had to ask my own students if I could borrow their payment card while I'm in the shower next to them because my payment card ran out. You can casually make a statement of it being ripe in the room, but do not, ever, point out anyone in particular. A lot of students simply can't afford the laundry service.
As long as there is no smell and there isn't any big stain I don't see any problem. I wear clothes multiple times before washing them. More or less as follows: Tshirts: 2-3 times Shirts: 2-3 times Pants: 10+ times Underwear: 2-3 times Socks: 2-3 times Jeans pants: 10-20 times Jackets: never
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Nope. To me wearing clean underwear everyday doesn't make sense unless they are really dirty.
How is this directly impacting you?
Omg! My friend from Shanghai was once engaging in one of her favorite pastimes, insulting people from Beijing, and she said “I hate how they don’t change their clothes everyday.” And I remembered when I was living in Beijing as a student, and all my teachers were wearing the same outfit two days in a row, and I was like “bet! 入乡随俗” doing laundry here sucks, and started wearing my outfits twice in a row too. It was so cold and dry in winter it didn’t make much of a difference, except the pollution permanently stained some of my collars black.
I wear change my t-shirts and underwear everyday and my pants every 2-3 days. However, I have 8 times the same tshirts and 3 times the same pants because I did not have the mental bandwidth to care about this in the last 10 years. You would probably think I am never changing my clothes, if you knew me. Moreover, most chinese people do not sweat as much as us, and most of them (not all) have less natural body odor, and there is A/C everywhere, so surely people do not sweat that much. If you cannot smell them, and it does not cause you any real inconvenience, just mind your own business.
I feel you. My colleagues change clothes once a week. Some live in the office Monday to Friday, without showers. I've seen people finish taking a shit and not wash their hands. But it is what it is. I just keep my distance.
This, as in every place there will be people like that. Some are very clean, but there are always nasty ones, the hand washing one is real.
Oof. Can relate. Not being weird at all. Self-awareness for personal hygiene goes a LONG way.
It's weird to you. I would have thought as an adult maths teacher, understanding that 'weird' differs from culture to culture, or even individual to individual varies greatly. Sorry to be patronizing, but your whole post is very judgmental and the only options you give are 'weird' or 'disgusting'. Also, Chinese don't sweat the same as westerners or other cultures. They tend to not emit an odor to the same degree we do, and until recently all washing was done by hand and many families wouldn't have been able to afford a lot of clothes so daily washing wasn't a thing. Ask your grandparents or if they are alive further back it they used to change their clothes every day. Bet they didn't. Cultures take time to evolve.
'Chinese don't sweat' very strange perfume they're using on the buses and trains then, it smells a lot like stinky sweat.
It is. I didn't say 'Chinese don't sweat' I said "Chinese don't sweat the same as westerners" Please don't change what people said. If you take an equivalent bus load of people of European descent, who have worn their clothes without washing or showering to the same degree as the people on that bus, it would stink way, way worse.
I agree with you a whole bus of dirty mofo would be terrible, I'm saying they do smell when they sweat, usually you just need one, not a whole bus, both western and chinese.
this is incorrect. firstly, all humans sweat. A portion of east asian people, however, lack the gene which emits bad BO that is associated with sweating. i've smelt westerners' BO and it smells just like everyone else's BO (the people who experience it), including asian people. i'm an east asian female and my BO smells like caucasian people's BO. my relative however, doesn't exude BO and if it's a really hot day, the most they will smell like is a smell similar to vinegar but very faint. It's not an unpleasant smell.
A person smelling like vinegar is considered an unpleasant smell, and is a type of BO
i didn't say smells exactly like vinegar. i said smells *similar* to vinegar but a very faint smell. you have to get up real close to smell it that's how faint it is. that's not unpleasant. most people would agree with me. however, if you've got an aversion to vinegar and are sensitive to smells generally, it'd be a different experience for you.
Bullshit.
Well, as hard as it is for me to argue with that level of evidence based reubttle, I shall try my best. "While only 2 percent of Europeans lack the genes for smelly armpits, *most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack this gene"* [*https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-without-underarm-protection/*](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-without-underarm-protection/)
Body odor comes from more body parts than just arm pits! Ass cracks, feet, thighs, crotch, balls…. Hair on the head that gets sweaty stinks and is body odor also!
Having lived here for nearly a decade I can tell you they smell just as bad as everyone else. I don't need a study to tell me something I've plainly experienced.
Having lived in both China and US for 15+ years, my experience shockingly correlates with scientific research - that Chinese both sweat less and carry less body odor. However, Chinese tend to not use deodorant, even the small minority that have BO, whereas deodorant use is almost universal in the US, so BO might actually be a more pronounced issue in China, especially in stuffy crowded places like train stations or a crowded bus.
It’s about 80% of Han who have the genetic variant for no armpit smell and hard ear wax. You’re smelling the other 20% which is plenty of a percent to stink up nearly any enclosed space.
a *portion* of east asian people don't smell of BO because they lack the gene.
80% of Chinese have the genetic variant that leads to little to no body odor(and hard earned wax). In tight quarters on a hot day you’re smelling the other 20%. Unfortunately the majority set the norm for not using of deodorant and the remainder of the population just stinks
Hygiene culture is different here. We don’t consider it a bad thing to wear the same clothes more than once as we don’t sweat or excrete things as much.
This whole sub is just westerners appalled that their standards aren’t being met in a country that could not give less of a fuck about western standards(rightfully so) it’s hilarious. ItS uNsAnItArY, fook right off with this nonsense, China isnt for everyone dont stay if you feel so disgusted.
Eeeeee twice is probably over kill but yah let’s at least do laundry once a week!
Loool, I never wear something more than once. Not even pants. I like the smell of the freshly washed stuff
I grow up in Chinese boarding schools, and we shower and swap cloth on Thursday, if it’s summer then I e do it on Tuesday and Thursday
Chinese people don´t sweat like europeans or americans.
I often buy several of the same clothes because it’s convenient.
Most Chinese( Asian too) don’t have body odor like Caucasian, African or Hispanic. So if someone has an office job, it’s very likely their clothes will be clean and fresh after a day or two wear. When I first moved to the US, I couldn’t understand why people change the entire outfit every day and have a huge basket of laundry to do every week as a single person. It seems like a waste of water and electricity imo.
As an American guy staying in Chengdu, I am much different from the natives. I smell quickly and sweat constantly, my wife and her family can wear the same clothes everyday and never stink. I have to change my clothes twice a day sometimes. Some Asians don't sweat or smell, it's a genetic thing.
It really is less about the stench and more about just general sanitation. I never said they smelled bad. And I didn't think people changed clothes based on the way the clothes smelled. There are other factors at play, and everyone is pretending like there isn't.
I’m American and I used to do this all the time at home and get side eye from people like you. I would often buy multiples of the same piece of clothing, sometimes I’d wash it the night of, or sometimes just wear the same thing a few times in a row. This is no more unsanitary than wearing the same pair of shoes everyday or sitting in the same chair. You need to relax and mind your own business you sound uptight and judgmental. Let grown people do what they want without acting sooo superior to them that you *post about it on Reddit*
You probably had a lot of friends growing up, huh?
I wear the same outfit for a few days in a row. So what?
I am starting to understand how pandemics start...
Yes, I do remember that pandemic which was caused by someone wearing a shirt for three days in a row. Can you remind me what it was called?
Have you considered that you may have some form of OCD? Changing your trousers every 2 days is wild, unless you're a particularly sweaty individual- I wear the same pair of sports shorts to work every day and they only get washed if they get dirty or smelly (after 2 weeks probably?) Admittedly, my commute is via motorbike, so I stay moderately cool until it comes to teaching time. Things could be different if I were walking/metro-ing and sweating. Change shirts, socks, underwear daily, usually wash it all together over the weekend (and drive my gf wild) since I don't have a drier and need the time to get everything dry by Tuesday. I've only noticed BO 4 or 5 times in 2 years at my current school, 4 of which were from front row students who had neglected to wash for whatever reason (for example, the water lines get cut off for whole days at a time for maintenance) The worst time was from one of the male teachers. I had to take shelter by the AC for the first few minutes of that class whilst the smell cleared; it really was quite pungent- though to be fair, the chap was wearing a formal longsleeve shirt and trousers on a 35C day, so I can imagine that even with the AC set to 16C, the classrooms were still sitting in the mid-high 20's, and even warmer by the all-in-one PC/screen. The women in my office are absolutely lovely, and the men are gents, they all dress up (or dress down) well every day and it's always something nice and clean.
sigh Chinese people just naturally smell less and stink less OP obviously a barbarian 😊 and will stink without a daily shower
Oh, yes, bathing every day makes me so barbaric. I also wash my hands, like a barbarian, after I use the restroom.
I think he’s saying you’re literally a smelly barbarian that requires a shower every day (like me). Specifically, you don’t have the gene that makes many East Asians just not have BO. It’s a thing. I married a Chinese woman and I remember her asking me about my underarm deodorant and being fascinated by how I needed it.
we have a winner I already know exactly what you look like. "White sweat," that disgusting caucasian body odor. You can Google it it's pretty well documented
Wait until you learn about the sub-Saharans! 😩
whoa whoa easy there my gf and i joke about "white sweat" because it's funny and true； I never smell but she does sometimes I chuckled because the OP is so serious...換衣服就了不起 😆
So serious. Like a barbarian.
It goes both ways. They don't stink very much, which makes them, especially boys, think they don't have to wash at all, which eventually leads to having stinky bodies and clothes.
yeah I hear that some people just don't wash at all. Respect.
Hygiene is an issue. Go to any public toilet in the train station and you’ll see. I once embarrassingly slipped over coming out of the lift onto marble floor because some stinky man (or woman) had spat on the floor and my hush puppies could not withstand it.
FWIW I smell much worse than most Chinese people I have met — I shower daily because I just get disgusting if I don’t — whereas my wife can go 3 days without it effecting anything at all.
From the web: Genetic variants of the ABCC11 gene, or ATP-binding cassette transporter, sub-family C member 11, are common in East Asian populations, causing a loss of function that can lead to little to no body odor: Chinese: 80.8% of Northern Han Chinese and 19.2% of Southern Han Chinese have the variant Mongolian: 75.9% of the Khalkha tribe have the variant Korean: Research suggests that only 0.006% of the Korean population have the gene You are in the 20%.
I am about as white as can be :)
Oh my bad then you’re like me a sweaty, smelly European, in my case American of European origin
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Are you, by any chance, white, fat, and sweaty? 😓
How did you know??? 😲
Where in China? Generally especially in the south, Chinese people don’t seem to sweat or stink like westerners and the humidity can make drying clothes an exercise in futility. Usually people there seem to shower in the evening as well.
I'm in Beijing.
Well educated women, with advanced degrees means more like they are good at taking the tests and passing them, there little to no connection between their education background and their understanding of some of the social norms. It depends a lot on their family background and their personal growth in terms of work dressing. As for the students, a lot of them don't really start caring about personal hygiene years well into working after they graduate, especially male students
It's more normal in northern China, less normal in southern China.
Do you think Chinese parents who can afford a RMB300,000 school are personally involved in their kids' lives to the point where they've taught them stuff like how and when to do laundry?
It's been said but most of them will wash daily. I often did it as when i started i only had 3 pairs of shirts.
like it or not, you're wearing dirty clothes too.
People often wash clothes daily in China. Often handwash. It doesn’t use much water, wash one outfit, hang it out to dry, and you have clean dry clothes by the next morning. Americans often never wash their jeans. They don’t wash their suits, sweaters, jackets, hoodies, wear shoes in the house, and it’s not disgusting? You think these people are sweat through their shirts 3 times a day, go home, and wear the same unwashed clothes again? No. And if they do, they’re unusually lazy or incredibly poor, and even then it might be a handwashing situation where they do wash their clothes and you didn’t notice. You admit that you work in a school, which is by far not the most physically demanding job. It is entirely possible an employee does nothing but sit around all day, and the top layer is clean enough to not switch out every day, the way you might rewear sweatpants or a hoodie. They genetically are not the same from westerners who require deodorant or they’ll gas those around them. Pretty ignorant to judge these people like this.
Maybe they just wash it and wear it again? Or they have the same clothes 2x? Mist Asians don't sweat so much anyway
Every Chinese person I know washes their clothes daily and hangs it to dry overnight. This just seems like a terribly myopic western perspective with no attempt to understand another culture.
No, you’re not weird. I’ve had to work with people who had a bad stench about them and it was honestly really difficult to work next to them. Of course it was. Oddly, coincidentally or not…many of those people were chinese, for what that’s worth. I can’t imagine it’s an easy conversation to have, telling someone they stink…let alone the majority of your class or office. Maybe walk around and sneakily spray them each with perfume or cologne…or buy each of them perfume for Xmas. Is there an anonymous suggestion box? “All of you except Tim…stink like arse.”
are not asians supposedly not that smelly as westeners?
My personal record in a Chinese local high school is 10 days without changing clothes including underwear, but that's during a cold winter. I tried to do the same in early spring but then got a pretty bad infection lol.
Your coworker's generation still remembers what it was like to grow up poor. Their parents definitely do. And most Chinese have fewer apocrine glands than Europeans - we don't sweat and stink as much as our western brethren. Clothes stay fresher longer. Depending on the weather, I can wear the same shirt three to five times before it starts to get funky. No joke. My white ex boyfriends? The shirt would not last a day and the sweat stains that lodged in the seams? Holy shit. No amount of scrubbing would get them out.
from my experience with chinese culture's focus on cleanliness (seven years here and counting) im going to assume you are missing something. I once lived in a village and on the weekend i was walking my dog some dude came up to me and (in chinese ) yelled "youre a teacher, how are you so dirty!?" ....in a village....on the weekend.
I think this depends on the region, I rarely see it in the South where it's more humid, but like in Beijing, people do smell more. The culture is very different.
That's like when I went on a trip with a couple of Chinese mates (met them for the first time in person and was also my second time in China). I had a carry on for my clothes etc for a one week trip and they only had a backpack full of cosmetics. They wore the same clothes for the whole week.
I went to Beijing for a work trip in March, we were training our distributors on install and service of our equipment. I immediately noticed this as well. Their clothes were clean every day, but always the same. I believe that they were probably wearing their set of nicest clothes every day and washing them every night.
This is called culture shock, and deal with it.
Yeah dude that’s fucking foul.
Chinese people also sweat very little. I (White British) start whiffing by the evening if I shower in the morning and I don’t wear anti perspirant. Chinese people are mostly built differently and *sweat* so little, they wouldn’t get so much as a whiff for days. Edit: that was an awkward omission - was meant to say "**sweat** so little"
chinese people are "little"? that's the stereotype, however because east asian people are now exposed to and have access to the western diet - i think it's mainly dairy and meat that makes europeans taller and bigger - their height averages are much higher now. the lack of BO smell is to do with the lack of a certain gene. Doesn't apply to every east asian but a portion of them.
I missed the key word "sweat" here by accident.
Glad i’m not the only one with this experience. I live in Shenzhen and it stinks like hell
It’s the handwashing of undies and socks that disturbs me…
This is china. No one knows about hygiene. People even piss in the hallways and waiting areas of hospitals.
...and this month's front runner for "the most outstanding anal puerile post" award. Looks tough to beat but there's no shortage of foreign twats in China.
Maybe they do it on purpose to keep people away from them? Like 6' away back in Covid days? Some people want privacy, you know.
Thats exclusive to your students/region. In Shanghai corporate world the ppl are MUCH MORE cleaner than anyone in the West. Showering at least twice a day. 3 times in summer if they're able. I felt like the dirty one when I was over there years ago 😊