Hot & Spicy Girls 重庆麻辣女人

I'm taking advantage of the MacBook Pro I use for work and putting together some movies of my pictures and videos from China. Between that and the book, it's one reason I haven't been around here much.

I keep finding treasures in the crevices of my picture files, like this picture of a 'ma la' skirt. In Mandarin, 'ma' 麻 means 'numbing' and 'la' 辣 means 'spicy', and 'ma la' is a phrase commonly used as slang to describe Chongqing girls; the weather and the food are numbingly hot and spicy, and so therefore are the women. This is an adult woman's skirt. As you can see, it's about half my size. I can't imagine getting even my butt in this thing, let alone my legs.

Chongqing style is very ma la: short, tiny, tight, bright, covered in sequins and embellishments. Chongqing is sort of the Rio of China, I guess. I had a girl once tell me, while dressed in tiny panty shorts and a see-through shirt: "I am a traditional girl. But it is very hot here." Indeed.

We still use 'ma la' to describe things, i.e. "That is a very ma la outfit/dress/girl" etc. (One thing I loved about being with my China friends in Boston and NYC was using Chongqing slang with each other. 'Ma la' made several appearances.) Here is another ma la girl:

We are Chongqing girls now. We are ma la. We embrace it. At least, that's the excuse I tell myself for having purchased these shoes (although I am sure it has more to do with my Spanish blood than anything else):

I can't help it. I love them.