I originally wrote this post as a comment to a blog post published here:
http://pictureyear.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-pjs.html

The post is amusing, and the photos published very "life-like".  I felt compelled to add to it since the post only dealt with Shanghai dwellers and their habit of harboring their bodies in PJs in the streets of the southern Chinense city.

This PJ practice is very much alive in Xiamen too,  where people go do their errands and grocery shopping, or play badminton outdoors in PJs. The Florida-like weather of Xiamen (Fujian proviince) might explain it, but also the non-judgmental attitude of Chinese people toward other people's accoutrement.

The strict dressing code so characteristic of Mao's days is definitely a thing of the past, as attested by the ravishing exuberance of Chinese youth apparel - which is much more imaginative than in Western countries.

I also found the PJ dress code to be ‘en vogue' in the Beijing hutongs (small alleyways lined-up with one-storey houses and ‘hole-in-the-wall' shops).

There, I believe the phenomenon is linked to the fact that a hutong is a tightly knitted community where everyone knows everyone else.

Dwellers in the same hutong form a ‘large family', and the structure of the courtyards (four one-storey houses grouped around a central courtyard) has probably fostered this sense of belonging.

Before 1949 and the foundation of New China, courtyards used to be one-family ‘compounds'. But with the shortage of decent housing, and the rural migration towards urban centers, the Chinese government ordered owners of courtyards to open up their residences to other families.

Courtyards became shared, with two families or more living in tight quarters. When you and your neighbors know practically everything on each other, being seen in PJs by them doesn't matter very much anymore.

And true, public toilets are the norm in hutongs where people go wash themselves to a common sink, and share in the intestinal life of their neighbors over quasi open 'squatters'.