People Adornment Essay-Bi Tao

How do I dress? I would say that I am a sports guy so you would find that most of my closet choices involve basketball mesh shorts, tshirts, lots of addidas and nike products. I also have a very nice collection of baseball caps and other sports stuff. I don’t have any tattoos because I believe that human body is very sacred and should not be bodily modified unless you really desire to do so and have very good reasons.

In the discussion about body customization, I would like to reflect on my life styles and how I got my lifestyles from my family. As mentioned above, I am a ‘sports guy’, meaning that I literally spend every spare moment I have playing sports or working out. My parents are both military officials so they put a lot of emphasizes on physical health. I remember that when I was a kid, they made me wake up at five everyday to practice for cross country races. Maybe it is a biological inherited thing that I really do love sports and I enjoy doing sports as a hobby. Originally, I chose to wear sports attires because it is convenient for me to use pieces of time to work out, and then when I came to college ,I realized that how you dress pretty much determined what kind of person you are. And I want people to know me as a guy who values physical health and I think that sports clothes help me to express my personality and my preferences in lifestyle choices. So now, when I look at my wardrobe, I am pretty happy with my choices of sports clothes.

There is also the question of aesthetics in sports clothes. Some people think that sports clothes are ugly and tshirts are not the type of clothes that makes you look all dressed up. However, I would argue that the aesthetics of clothes are not determined by their categories, but how they are designed. For example, my favorite brand, Addidas Originals, have many sweatshirts and gym pants that are well designed and of aesthetics.

When thinking about what has changed in my choices of clothes over the years, I think that nothing has changed. I think that I maintained my life style and hence my dress choices are also pretty consistent.

I think that in terms of body modifications, I am always forbidden to do any modifications to my body. When I was a child, my parents told me that everyone’s body is a gift from heaven and by modifying one’s body, they are opposing the nature and disrespecting the nature. When I grown up, I don’t think it is very true that doing modification is disrespecting nature, but I do think that body is very sacred and people should not rush to modify their body unless they have thought it through and consider their decisions a carefully determined thing instead of an adrenaline rush.

In my family, discipline is a core value and my parents don’t like the popular materialistic, consumerism culture. My parents think that people should treat themselves with sincerity and not trying to disguise themselves with superficial things and try to be what they really are not. My parents always tell me to remain truthful about my identity and do not blindly follow those ‘trends’ . I think that our family value is mostly conveyed verbally and my parents are very good at convincing me. Also, they don’t commit to materialism themselves and always remain very professional.

In my community (which is the university of Oregon student community), the core values are inclusiveness and diligence. In terms of body adornment, I find that my peers are very inclusive about the appearances and apparel choices. I think that we could see that a lot of people wear sweatshirts everyday while others choose to dress up in suits. Some people have heavy tattoos and some don’t even have piercings. Yet, I see everyone not judging people by their looks but by who they are and I think this is a very good thing. People should not be judged based upon their own choices for body adornments and I think that although I don’t want to commit myself to body modifications, I still respect other people who chose to do so. I also think that in my community, most students are very open-minded and don’t judge people by the worth of their clothes. However, I observed that some people in fraternities and sororities think that the more expensive one’s clothes is, the more likely the individual is from a good socio-economic background and worth to be treat better. I feel that I am very oppose to such perspectives.