I'm Really Big in China

(This may not be something you want your youngsters reading, fyi.)
(Not "dirty" or NSFW content, but read before sharing.)

Not me.

As an American in China, I am a minority. In many ways. I stand out. Not just as one of a few pink-skinned Caucasians.
I am tall. Even for a white girl.
I have red hair.
I have green eyes.
I have a visible tattoo.
I wear makeup.

AND... I am "blessed in the chest." I put that in quotation marks because it is more often a curse - just ask most naturally "gifted" women.


We've been here over eight months, and only a limited amount of clothing came with us. The time finally arrived that I decided to bite the bullet and buy a bra. In the States, buying a bra isn't daunting. I know my size. Here, not only am I several sizes larger than the vast majority of the female population, I have no clue about their sizing! (You'd think it was metric, but you'd be wrong.)

Their bra sizing chart. WTF?

There's a little, free-standing, lingerie shop that I sometimes walk past on the major road nearby. I've always wanted to go in, but was scared because of my lack of language skills. The other day, they had a table out front with, presumably, sale items on it. I stopped. 
We stopped. I was with Brett. (His perspective is different.)

Years ago, I worked for Victoria's Secret. I know a thing or two about bra-fitting. My best friend now works for another undergarment brand and swears they have a better method which is hyper-accurate.

Dude. There is no bra-fitting like a Chinese bra-fitting. I don't know if it's "hyper-accurate" - there was no tape measure to be seen anywhere. Just tiny Chinese hands.

I was escorted into a fitting room that resembled a high-quality bridal boutique display room. Whoa. 

Remember Jeanie's bottle from that old TV show? Yeah. I was there. Only three times larger. And it wasn't a round room.

My tiny little Chinese attendant directed me to sit on a silk covered stool ... not on one of the many low beds covered in purple and gold silk. I took off my top, and she motioned me to remove my bra.


That was odd. 

She didn't react to my large, aging breasts exposed to her. Just held a new bra in front of me to put my arms in. Like a mother to a young child: "Here honey, put your arms in the holes!"

THEN... She fastened it at the back, reaching down into the back part of the bra to pull any extra flesh into the VERY WIDE back. (I've noticed that. Even on tiny Chinese women, the bras have ample fabric across the back. It's just the style.)

After this mini-massage pulling my back-fat into the bra, she proceeded to do the same with the front, using her tiny Asian hands to pull everything from the side into the middle, and smooth the middle across toward the side so that ALL OF ME was inside the cup.

Think of the last mammogram you had, ladies. You know how the technician pulls all that side-boob onto the slide? ALL of it.

They had me trying several different styles and prints - leopard, zebra, seafoam green... each was hand-fitted. By hand. Not by measuring. I started to be comfortable with the fact that this was just this girl's job. She wasn't weirded out by my mammary overload. A couple other bra-girls came and went at different times.

At one point, as they got a new bra ready to try, I started unfastening the one I had on, and one of the girls swatted my hands away with an exclamation of horror. 

One attendant noticed that my pale, white-girl, boob-flesh exactly matched the - what I would arrogantly call - "flesh-toned" bra, and we all shared a laugh. 

I left with one new bra to see how I like it before buying multiples. To be honest, I feel kind of weird wearing it. The girls are too front and center for my comfort. But they behave! No spilling out the top, no need for me to fix it at the bottom. I tell you what - It is the best, most supportive bra I own, even if I'm wearing a bizarre size and can't hardly see over my own melons.

If you can get over the "Help! I'm being felt up" feeling, I highly recommend a Chinese bra fitting.

Oh, and after I paid, they asked if I wanted to stick around for a massage. I guess that's what all the purple silk beds were for.