Food and Dress
beads. The garment worn as a covering for the lower part of the body is the same for all—King and peasant, man, woman, and child. As seen in pictures and photographs, it resembles a pair of baggy knicker-bockers. It consists of a long strip of coloured cloth, about the same size and shape as a bath-towel. The method of draping it about the body is not easily explained on paper. This much, however, may be said: there are no pins, tapes, buttons, or fastenings of any kind; but the panoong, as it is called, is so cleverly twisted and tied, that it can be worn at all times and under all circumstances without any fear of it ever becoming loose. You may run in it, sleep in it, or swim in it, and you will always be perfectly cool and comfortable. This is the only native garment for men, though in the capital, and in other places where white men are seen, the people have learned to wear white linen jackets. These are buttoned to the throat, and collars and shirts are not required. Shoes and stockings are not known, except where the European has taught their use. The soles of the feet get so hard that, in time, they are like leather itself, and cut or wounded feet are very seldom seen.
The women wear a coloured scarf, called the pahom, wound round the upper part of the body. This is the only addition to the costume of the men ever invented by the ladies of Siam. As for hats, there are no such things, except a few big straw-plaited erections that look like baskets turned upside down, and which are worn by the women who sit selling their goods in the markets.
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