My man-sized stick

Yesterday when I unenthusiastically went to the department store, I chanced upon a rack of umbrellas in the men's department. There were small-sized umbrellas and larger ones. When I examined the labels, it turned out that all of the smaller-sized umbrellas were marketed as being for "ladies," whereas the larger-sized umbrellas were marketed as being for "men." Having grown up blissfully unaware of the fact that there were gender differences in umbrellas, I was quite intrigued.

Upon closer inspection, the "ladies'" umbrellas were marketed as ones that would automatically close. The men's umbrellas also had this feature, but were larger AND were marketed as capable of resisting inversion. The capability of resisting inversion interested me greatly. My number one problem with the various umbrellas I've had short-term flings with are their inabilities to stand up to the wind in Boston. Such umbrellas would invert, thus being ineffective at keeping the rain off of me. Meanwhile, it seemed as though the inverted umbrella was like a sail that enabled the wind to push me along and possibly blow me away.

I looked through all of the "ladies'" umbrellas, eager to find one that also was capable of resisting inversion. No such umbrellas existed. Now, I thought, that is funny... why exactly do the makers of these umbrellas think that women - excuse me - "ladies" do not want umbrellas that resist inversion? And who ever thought to genderize umbrellas in the first place? Why also the insistence of making a bigger umbrella for men? Do men really take up that much more area than a woman does from a bird's eye view? If they wanted to make different sizes of umbrellas for people of different girths, wouldn't it make more sense to size them "small," "medium," and "large?"

Perhaps this marketing strategy of genderizing umbrellas plays to men's insecurities. Perhaps there are a lot of men who are more willing to buy an umbrella that is labeled a "men's" umbrella that is also larger than the other umbrellas. I imagined all the men who bought the larger "men's" umbrellas because they didn't already have a large stick. It was an amusing mental exercise, but it still didn't solve my problem of wanting an umbrella that resisted inversion.

I bought the "men's" umbrella. The cashier asked me if I wanted a gift receipt, which is fair question given that it was Christmas shopping season, and I answered "no." I put my man-sized, inversion-resistant umbrella into my pink girly backpack, which was nevertheless big enough to accommodate the man-sized stick.

Steamed Buns

remind me of 6 am in Hanoi: walking out onto the street, smelling the city, saying "good morning, sister!" to strangers, and feeling at home in a country I'd only been in for four days.