One of my mother’s two brothers was very particular about hygiene, even to the point of insisting we use communal chopsticks and spoons for shared dishes placed in the middle of the table for everyone — what Westerners would call “serving spoons” — so that we wouldn’t dip our own implements into those shared dishes, even though we were family. He was thin, which — from the Chinese perspective — means he must be unwell or undernourished, or just not particularly healthy.
My mother had a cousin, Uncle Lóng (“dragon”), who was very easy-going. He was fairly big — not flabby fat, but not thin. He was very laid-back about hygiene: if he dropped any (dry) food on the floor, he’d just pick it up, wipe/blow off the dust, and eat it.
People used to say, “Look at the thin one: he is so fussy about hygiene, yet he’s still so thin! The fat one’s not bothered about such things, yet he’s so robust!”
See also my blog: One way of putting on weight (or not).
(Singapore, 1960s)
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