I’ve told you about the little old folks that we see out and about in their little white cotton ersatz-Mao suits that are actually pajamas. The little child-sized ABC-block-printed pajama sets are really pretty cute. These are kids’ jammies but they fit these tiny, ancient, or at least old, although occasionally closer to middle-aged, folk who, from their malnourished look to their black or missing teeth, have the air of being very poor.

And now the Shanghai police are out to get them.

Ok, I exaggerate a little. Apparently a neighborhood watch committee is lobbying Shanghai to make wearing pajamas outdoors illegal. They argue that daytime jammies make the city look bad.

I admit the jammies are good for a snigger. But it’s not really a mean spirited snigger. In fact, it turns quickly into an affectionate grin. I mean, these tiny folks usually look ancient regardless of their age, like they’ve had a hard life. And the baby bunny prints are very cute. I wager I’m as mean-spirited as the next foreigner, and I think the pajama-suit set are pretty darn adorable.

But of all the stuff we see regularly in Shanghai…the prostitutes, the pubic peeing, spitting, and worse, the theft, the pollution, the auto ‘etiquette’, the treatment of animals, well, it would be easy to go on but that might just be rude…

I just have to think that they’re overreacting a bit on the jammies.