Super Size Me: Moving Abroad Gave Me Body Issues

It isn’t your imagination. Sizes of clothes in China are random and often smaller than foreigners are used to, to put it mildly. It’s hard not to look like an idiot when you shop if you’re holding up your Google Translate to tags, or keeping your handy-dandy international size converter chart on your home screen because every time you like a piece of clothing, you have to process it through numerous mathematical calculations.

After many misfires in Beijing, I thought I had finally figured out my size under the 175cm category. That’s only after realizing that 175 referred to your height and wasn’t a category of size here. But go to another store or even another rack, and my size was different. Don’t even get me started on the discrepancy between kids’ sizes either. My kids run small and there is no way to guarantee that any clothing will fit them, let alone their school uniforms.

To be honest, this problem isn’t unique to China. I remember shopping at Target in my smaller-sized days and wondering why I was a different size in different brands. I just wanted to leave the store with clothes that fit, without having to try every bloody item on. I acknowledge that part of this struggle is simply adjusting to my new shape and size, the same way I had to buy new bras during and after breastfeeding. And I am not the kind of person who likes to keep the clothes that don’t fit as motivation for dieting.

“Just go on Taobao,” I hear you say. But the last time I chose an XL costume for Halloween, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing it was meant to be form-fitting. The cape was usable, the bodysuit was not.

This article was originally published on our sister site Jingkids International. Click here to continue reading. 

READ: Egg-cellent Nosh! A Rundown of China’s Many Egg-based Snacks

Images: Unsplash, Cindy Marie Jenkins