Illustration: Luo Xuan/GT

The other day I was shopping for clothes and wandered into a lingerie shop. I decided to try on a bra, but it was a little small, so I asked the middle-aged shop assistant to fetch the correct size. Instead, she forced her way into the changing room and started shoving my breasts into the cups, all the while criticizing me for using the wrong technique. She ended the ordeal by snapping the bra-strap loudly with a flourish.

"There you go!" she said.

I was shocked speechless, and fled the store in a panic. How could she be so brazen? What kind of person breaks into a room and just starts fondling your breasts without your permission?

Then I remembered that even before manhandling me, she had been unbearably rude. While I was looking around the shop, she followed me relentlessly, desperately trying to sell me anything that I laid my eyes on even for just a fraction of a second. When we got to the bra section, she squinted at my chest and stuck up her nose, before thrusting one of the bras in my face.

"You should wear this," she said, pointing first to the clothes rack, and then to her own chest. "I wear it myself. See how my breasts are firm and upright?"

It was beyond embarrassing.

Chinese middle-aged lingerie shop assistants are a unique breed. They have no qualms about humiliating you, either by giving you embarrassing advice, or just insulting you, by saying that your breasts are uneven or just wrong. They tell you that you should throw away every bra you currently own, because it's causing your breasts to be misshapen.

Having learnt my lesson, the next time I entered the lingerie store at the deluxe department store, I firmly and decisively rejected their offer of assistance, then ran to the changing room.

Phew! I had ditched her successfully. But why wouldn't the door close? To my horror, the shop assistant had wedged her foot in the gap.

"You don't know how to put it on properly. I have to help you!"

After a frantic struggle, I managed to push her out of the changing room. I was all sweaty and felt nauseated. She stood outside the door the entire time, giving all kinds of detailed tips in an obnoxious voice. At one point, she even tried to peek inside through a crack between the doorframe.

It was horrible!

I started to wonder about her motivation for working at the shop. Or maybe she was just a voyeur? How on earth could anyone think that behaving like this would help sales? And yet, it seems that all middle-aged women who work in lingerie shops are like this.

My friends told me they've had similar experiences and people online have shared all kinds of unfortunate lingerie shop stories. Since when was shopping for lingerie supposed to be an excruciating exercise in humiliation?

Perhaps these lingerie store shenanigans are a reflection of more general attitudes toward privacy - or the lack thereof - in China. In the end, I don't think these shopkeepers do it on purpose. I think the real problem with lingerie shop assistants is they don't have any sense of boundaries - recklessly invading a person's private space, without realizing that it causes embarrassment and discomfort.