Some Chores and Thoughts
Abstract
A common week has past, and most of the events are too plain to be deemed as “highlights”. So, I select some relatively meaningful parts and manage to ✍ down.
The weather last week was satisfyingly sunny but terrible for its fluctuating temperature throughout a day, from 12 °C in the morning to 30 °C at noon then declining back to approximately 15 ℃ before sleeping. It is actually a typical feature of the climate of inland cities in China like Xi’an, Zhengzhou, etc., namely, temperate continental climate. But as a young boy raised up in a town adjacent to the southeast coast, this is absolutely a torture because I find it really tricky to pick suitable clothes from my shelf. Every morning in that week, deliberation must be taken to determine whether hoodie or shirt should I wear. Hoodie would be too redundant while shirt is not enough for the lower temperature after dusk. Both choices result in unanimous suggestion that I had better go buying a thin coat or oversize shirt to cope with this spring in Xi’an.
By the way, I am a fan of simplicity if regarding clothing. My criteria on a satisfying #Outfit of the Day# is
To minimize the color of my garments.
To avoid a plethora of pattern, especially brands or icons.
To select casual wear instead of formal or athletic ones.
By the criteria listed above, my shelf contains many redundant shirts or T-shirts with pure and humble color, e.g., black and navy blue. And this clothing style is mainly affected by my friend Billy @billy_hch , as well as some YouTube vloggers especially @Tim Dessaint . I do learn a lot from their posts and videos.
It’s interesting that a great deal of my clothes are Uniqlo’s. Uniqlo is famous for fast fashion that provide up-to-date design of clothes. To me, the most deserving design by Uniqlo is its casual clothing, but the quality of their collections is controversial. Their flannel checked shirts and denim trousers are really comfortable for me but the color is prone to be bleached or faded after times of washing in the machine. This is fairly intelligent marketing strategy that the consumers should keep visiting their stores to update their stretched or faded clothes every season. In other words, the less satisfying quality plus various genius design equal to consistent faith of customers to pay for the fashion. This theory is the same for Zara, H&M and UR, etc.
China is undergoing a new round of serious COVID-19 pandemic. The causation this time is probably the unconscious input of strain Omicron from adjacent countries or regions. Shanghai is in the eye of storm this time, where currently the virus is vastly spread and tens of thousands of positives are detected per day. Such serious COVID-19 situation in Shanghai has stirred up a heat discussion on whether China should coexist with the virus or not. In my points of view, I don’t care which is preferred by the government, what I expect is the imperative action to control the mortality caused by the virus in the affected communities or even the whole country. The UK government claimed that the overall death rate of COVID is 0.035%, slightly lower than that of the flu (0.040%). And this round of COVID-19 pandemic in Shanghai, initiated by Omicron strain, result in extremely low mortality of 3 in 300k. Therefore, Shanghai’s data of COVID-19 is satisfying to some extent, though more appropriate action should be taken to maintain the basic life quality of common locals.