Ah pajamas. So cozy, so convenient. Don't you sometimes wish you could just wear them all day? Well, for Shanghainese people wearing pajamas outdoors has long been a treasured tradition (it's said to have begun as a status thing in the 1930s, being able to afford pajamas was a fact worth flaunting). Today, it's a rare traveler or expat who hasn't seen (and felt obliged to comment on) the phenomenon, with verdicts about whether such attire is appropriate in public coming down on both sides of the fence.

It's a thorny issue to be sure. Many visitors consider the practice quite charming, one that contributes to a unique Shanghai character rapidly disappearing as the massive, city-wide, pre-Expo facelift, now nearing its conclusion, leads to wholesale gentrification. There are photography books all about it, such as Justin Guariglia's Planet Shanghai, and foreigners get in on the fun and share pictures of themselves in pajamas on Flickr too.

However, among native Shanghainese, the practice is given an increasingly emphatic thumbs down, with China Daily polls citing public pajamas as a chief public nuisance along with aggressive pets and disrespectful neighbors. Meanwhile, a poll in the Wall Street Journal showed a fairly even split:

      Of 5,794 respondents, 42% thought the practice was “uncivilized,” while 34% called it “convenient”and the remaining 24% said it was “normal.”

Most dramatically of all, in a China Daily article (linked to by CNNGo) Shanghai's anti-pajama campaign, involving at the very least 500 volunteers and millions of etiquette books, was ranked as one of the top 10 crackdowns of 2009—in the not-so-triffling company of efforts to halt gang activity in Chongqing, drunk driving, and even human trafficking.

A state propaganda organ that neatly acts as a window into the Chinese government's id, China Daily's article is a good indicator of just how seriously a "threat" public pajamas are seen to be to the official image of Shanghai as sophisticated modern metropolis, with potential for embarrassment from "uncivil" pajamarama apparently intolerable. But unlike wiping out entire neighborhoods for the Beijing Olympics, public pajamas are not an issue the government can simply bulldoze and build over.

Regulating clothes is a practice harking back to cultural revolution days, and is a major infringement on personal freedom. As such, the potential for blowback is significant. "How can the government interfere with my clothes?” said a pajama proponent in the WSJ. It's a feeling shared by enough residents for the government to backpedal: in October, they denied they'd stepped up the campaign, while this week, according to Global News, Shanghai's vice mayor is appealing for "tolerance" in the debate.

Hard to imagine such a fuss over flannel, huh?

Photo from Justin Guariglia's Planet Shanghai

Justin is a contributing photographer/editor for National Geographic Traveler Magazine. His Planet Shanghai is an intimate portrait of day-to-day life in one of the world's most dynamic cities.

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