Today after the evening class two boys came up to me and said that they had noticed that I change my clothes quite often. They then wanted to know if it was a Western habit to change your clothes often, maybe even every day?
I looked at them for a while, and said, errrr yes, many people change their clothes fairly often. I have to point out here that most of my students go on for days and days wearing the same thing.
The next question was whether the reason for changing clothes was because people wanted to look beautiful. To which my answer was that people rather like to wear clean clothes, that most people would have a shower every day after which it's nice to wear something clean. They looked at me, said 'ahhhh', thanked me, and left.

Incidentally, the topic of taking showers came up today in my PhD class, too. I asked a girl, Sophia, what she did last night, and she told me that she and her classmate Alexis went to bathe. I didn't quite get what she meant, and asked if she meant that they went swimming or something. But no, she really meant that they went to take a shower, which is not something you'd do every day. And maybe the biggest reason for this is that the dorms on campus have no showers ot baths! The students live in small rooms with bunk beds, with 8 to 10 people crammed together. And when I say small I mean really *small*. The few PhD students who are living on campus are the lucky ones as they are only four people to one room. But as for showers, you have to go all the way across the campus area to a public bath house, where you actually have to pay to use the showers. The students buy a card which they can charge with money and then pay every time they want to get a shower. What can I say, other than lucky me with my own bathroom with hot water, any time of the day, and no charge!

Another question I was asked in class today: "Do you think you are beautiful?"