{"id":917,"date":"2014-09-01T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T08:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=917"},"modified":"2014-08-05T10:34:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T10:34:25","slug":"may-i-ask-one-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=917","title":{"rendered":"May I ask one question?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_922\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Black-Toenail-Polish-Tobyotter-Flickr.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-922\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922\" src=\"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Black-Toenail-Polish-Tobyotter-Flickr-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Black Toenail Polish Tobyotter Flickr\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Black-Toenail-Polish-Tobyotter-Flickr-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/damesnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Black-Toenail-Polish-Tobyotter-Flickr.jpg 683w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-922\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Black Toenail Polish \/ Tobyotter \/ Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This was the gentle enquiry from a puzzled young economics student recently encountered at Galle railway station in Sri Lanka. We were on the final leg of our whistle stop holiday tearing round the country and desperate to see everything from ancient civilisations to whale watching.<\/p>\n<p>The one unifying factor was the heat \u2013 around 35 degrees Celsius with humidity of 98% to be precise. Which indirectly led to the question.\u00a0 We had got through the three standard queries:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is it your first time in Sri Lanka?<\/li>\n<li>Where are you from?<\/li>\n<li>Do you like our country?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thence followed an animated discussion regarding where our student acquaintances might go abroad for further study \u2013 Australia and Canada scored highly, the UK barely got a mention.\u00a0 We talked about town planning and building structures, a subject dear to my partner\u2019s heart, as he is an architect. Then came the question:<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Please could you tell me why all western men wear shorts?\u2019 This from a young man smartly dressed in blue shirt, pressed jeans and black leather loafers.<\/p>\n<p>We answered in unison: \u2018Because it\u2019s hot\u2019.\u00a0 This in no way clarified our young friend\u2019s query.\u00a0 Clearly he associated short trousers with childhood, and was astounded that a mature man should choose to wear shorts around a city.<\/p>\n<p>I realised that based on his somewhat limited experiences of western men encountered whilst following the tourist trail, the student could well assume that shorts was their standard dress at home as well, and that all Londoners went to work on the tube in baggy knee length shorts with pockets weighed down with essential items.\u00a0 I had spent the last 16 days soaking up as much as possible of Sri Lankan life. I knew I had not dressed inappropriately when visiting the Buddhist temples, and had adopted my usual attitude of polite deference to the prevailing culture.\u00a0 Nevertheless, not for one minute had I reflected on what impressions we might be making on the locals. And then came this question.<\/p>\n<p>It was a bit like the difference between reading the guide books and then finding yourself in the country itself. How could we begin to explain that back home our dress code was quite different, and that was largely based on one key fact \u2013 the weather.\u00a0 If you live in a country where it never goes below 20 degrees, what need have you for a winter wardrobe, or indeed the innumerable permutations of clothing associated with a temperate or continental climate?<\/p>\n<p>We clearly had not given a good impression of people from Britain.\u00a0 We boarded our train and arrived in Colombo three sticky, sweaty hours later.\u00a0 We collapsed gratefully on the bed in our air conditioned room in the hotel, then showered and changed for supper. My partner dug out his one pair of trousers from the bottom of his suitcase where they had languished since our arrival.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I think I\u2019ll make a statement\u2019, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was the gentle enquiry from a puzzled young economics student recently encountered at Galle railway station in Sri Lanka. We were on the final leg of our whistle stop holiday tearing round the country and desperate to see everything from ancient civilisations to whale watching. The one unifying factor was the heat \u2013 around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1195,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions\/1195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}