Unwanted attention

While women should defend their right to dress, unconventional or outrageous dressing in public could send a signal the subject may not intend.

It takes a genius to add a new perspective by splitting a single word. A dozen years ago, someone did it to the Chinese word "crisis" (weiji), illustrating that the first Chinese character in the word means "danger" and the second "opportunity". Then, thousands of seminar participants jumped on the bandwagon.

In June, someone in Shanghai miraculously split the Chinese word for "harassment" (saorao). "I can be sexy (sao)," says a slogan, "but you should not hassle (rao)." It was a public response to a notice put out by the Shanghai Metro authority, which advised female passengers to dress conservatively to avoid sexual harassment.