In the US, we all know buying 100% cotton clothing is a fairly mindless and nondescript task. Yet as you have probably intuited, dear reader, mindless tasks at home often become elaborate adventures in the Middle Kingdom (hence the blog's name! :). At least in Hangzhou, synthetic is the name of the game. Polyester and rayon are fine enough to minimize our hypothermia in the winter, but of course would leave us incredibly miserable when August rolls around. For some reason, 100% cotton shirts have proven difficult to find outside of the stores catering to the uber-rich (i.e. I'd rather not pay $100+ dollars for a T-shirt, thank you very much).
To lighten not only my body temperature but also the mood for summertime, I've wanted to go local and find a 100% cotton panda T-shirt. Pandas are actually a popular logo for clothing here, and I asked my Chinese friend to help me surf the Chinese equivalent of Amazon.com to look for a cute and comfortable top. I was hoping to find something along these lines: