Hong Kong: land of the androgenous

When I see some people in Hong Kong, I honestly can't tell whether they're male or female. They're certainly not boys or girls or men or women in the social construct sense, but even when I try really hard to figure it out, I may still have no clue of their biological gender.

For every 100 people in Hong Kong, there are 52 women and 48 men. With the way some people dress and with their haircuts and figures, it's really really hard to tell if this statistic is true.

More and more girls, for example, really look like boys. They may wear baggy pants or pants with a billion pockets. They may cut their hair short, sometimes as short as mine. Some Hong Kong women may have boy-like figures even in their adult lives, not like their curvy cousins in the north.

Boys, on the other hand, are starting to look more and more like girls. It doesn't help that not too many guys here grow much facial hair, and it helps even less that a lot of guys here use sophisticated cosmetic products to maintain beautiful facial skin. A lot of guys in Hong Kong also grow their hair quite long and often keep a "just woke up" look. Unfortunately, a lot of girls have exactly the same haircuts.

I don't know why guys here don't want to look more serious and professional and why they don't get a more cleaner-looking haircut. I also don't understand why so many heterosexual girls here cut off their beautiful locks and hide their figures in very loose-fitting clothing. Are they interested in men at all? Do they expect men to be attracted to them? Are Hong Kong men attracted to them? Am I that out of touch with today's styles and tastes?


At the very least, I'd like to know whether someone's male or female. One way to find out is to hear their voice. However, I don't necessarily always want to talk to these people, and I may just want to know their gender out of my curiosity. Perhaps another test is to look at their chests. However, many women are not very well-endowed in that particular area; on the other hand, there are more and more obese men in Hong Kong, so a lot of men ARE well-endowed in that area. I've found that it's much more effective to look at someone's back rather than their chest. Yes, the bra-strap test. To see if someone is male or female, simply look for the all-telling bump on the person's back. Of course, there are flaws with this test. For one, it can't be done when a woman wears more than one layer of clothing. Secondly, not all women wear bras, so some "men" who pass this test may actually turn out to be flat-chested women. Thirdly, perhaps some men like to wear bras, or "mansieres", according to Frank Constanza from Seinfeld. Oh, I guess the bra-strap test isn't that effective after all.