No Pants Subway Ride, the annual event launched in 2002 by New York City-based Improv Everywhere, has spread to more than 60 cities, in which subway commuters strip off their pants on January 13 just because. Thousands participated this year in New York, hundreds in Mexico City, and, um, maybe a dozen or so in Shanghai? Participation looked sparse, but it’s not about quantity, of course, but quality, and few cities, I think, can boast a picture quite like the above, via CNTV.com.
Oh you silly laowai.
More pictures, plus a Facebook video for you. UPDATE, 11:26 am: As commenter Charles Laughlin points out, the proper accompanying post is indeed this one of a sexy chick pole dancing in the Wuhan subway.
More pictures from Reuters via the Italian paper La Repubblica (via No Pants Subway Ride Shanghai’s official Facebook event page):
From the Facebook account of Hany Elkomy, who I believe is the man in the very top picture:
(H/T Alicia)
This goes rather well with the pole-dancing piece. A streetcar named desire?
This is just wrong.
Privileged expats use social media inaccessible to locals in order to distance themselves further from said locals that have neither the capability nor cultural standing to do so.
terroir’s idea: expat ride like a (real) migrant worker day
Bunch of laowai saunter into a subway car hauling one of those giant “red, white, and blue” tarp bags, and obstructs the entrance by putting it next to the door, where they squat whilst shouting into a cellphone as loudly as possible about the next flash mob. For added authenticity, bring a Big Mac with you and chow down on that at the same time. Also, the suit that you are wearing is dusty.
Get to it, internet.
“cultural standing”? “this is just wrong”?
My diagnosis is: Surgical removal of the broomstick you got stuck up your arse.
(Ah, and because I remember you from Chinageeks, am gonna ignore any reply from you. Ciucciamelo).
Typical douchey, hipster wanna be lao wais sucking up for attention….
Ugly and boring.
Don’t get enough attention as a balding white hipster in Shanghai? Just take off your pants and show them how much of an attention whore you really are. The whole no pants flash mob is so old, and just lame. LOOK AT ME! I’M SPECIAL! I take off my pants and then don’t explain it because my Chinese is too crappy. But look! Look at my long white legs, my hipster briefs and color-coded douche-socks.
Word!
Man, I feel sorry for the Chinese sitting next to them. Most of them don’t want to sit next to us in the best of times. I can’t understand why you would want to do this. Don’t most of us want to be gawked at LESS?