MAN-icures

I have considered writing about this matter since I first arrived in China.  It’s something that really troubles me and even though I once vowed to a friend I would never share this on my blog, over recent months it has been such a pet hate that I feel the need to write this.  It’s something that has also disturbed many of my fellow expats and has repeatedly been the focus of many a conversation in both public and private spaces. 

What am I referring to: Men with freakishly long, strong, witch-like fingernails.  It’s a strangely common sight here in China, usually only found on pinky fingers, but sometimes thumbs or in very rare, stomach churning cases: all ten digits.  It’s more prevalent in middle aged men, but some people of my generation still adopt the look.

Asking Chinese friends about this sheds little light on the situation.   Some say fingernails were traditionally grown in years gone by as something of a status symbol, an indication you didn’t do manual labour and were wealthy enough to pay to have such tasks done for you.  But these days this explanation seems rather redundant.  People now apparently grow them for a number of reasons.  A Chinese friend of mine grows them for superstitious reasons, believing they bring good luck, as his commission based job suffers when his nails are cut short.  During busy sales events and crucial times of the year his nails always stay long, to give him the edge over his competitors.  Others just grown them to poke and prod in any available orifice.  Yes… I’ve witnessed it during many metro journeys in full view of everyone and it’s shamelessly, stomach churningly disgusting!
 

Whatever the reasoning behind it, the sight of such claws truly shocks newcomers to the country upon first glimpse and still entirely freaks the rest of us all out.  No matter how many times you see men with nails like this, you never become accustomed to it.

Men of China, do us all a favour – invest in a pair of nail clippers and slice off those talons.

A xx