I may have to leave China.

No, there was no international incident. I am not writing this from a deportation cell.

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Iwould rather go barefoot

I have noticed a disturbing trend in the Middle Kingdom, something that makes me rethink my chosen home.

Birkenstocks.

Yes, that right, the European sandals.

What I loved about China was the complete lack Birkenstocks. Insidiously, the ugly Eurotrash footwear has started to appear. There are sandals here, in every shape, size, style and price, but, be still my heart, the ugliest piece of footwear ever created was nowhere to be seen. Until recently.

I’m a firm believer in being comfortable (hence, the moratorium on pants while in my apartment) and I would never tell someone what not to wear. But Birks? They are comfortable I am told, but they are, to use a term in the general vernacular, butt-ugly. Do beautiful Chinese women need to adorn themselves with hideous foot coverings? In a word: No.

I have a good friend that wore the footwear in question years before anyone else did. At that time I thought, “How unusual. And Ugly.”  Then, the granola-eating wanna-be hippies jumped on the bandwagon and those that started the trend, the innovators, were painted with the same brush as the pseudo-environmentalists, sometime-vegetarians, and animal rights activists that wear leather jackets and sleep on feather pillows. Soccer Moms driving gas-guzzling SUVs need to have comfy feet.

I will shed a tear at what I have witnessed. Hopefully it was only an isolated incident, a cluster of sightings, not a trend. If not, Thailand beckons.