People Adornment Essay-Jingyi Long
I think that the most direct way to tell a person’s personality and socio-economic statuses. I think that it is important to recognize the fact that in contemporary society, dresses and body modifications determines how others perceive you. Although this could be a good thing and a bad thing, this is the reality we are facing everyday.
I would give you an example of my tattoo. When I was a freshman in college, I decided to have a cross tattoo on my left arm to commemorate my convert to the Christian faith. I got a lot of compliments of the tattoo when I was at UO. However, when I went back to China for summer vocation, a lot of people were staring at me as if I am an ex-convict. I understand how they think so: In the Chinese culture context, people consider those who have tattoos to be members of gangs or ex-convictions. People started to avoid me when I am walking on the street. My parents got really mad at me and asked me what happened to me. In most people’s perspectives, tattoos are associated with traumatic psychological events or memberships of secretive societies. Even after my explanations of my decisions to get the tattoo and how it is related to faith, people still look me in doubt. Up till today, my parents still bring up the tattoo and try to convince me that it is wrongful. They are also worried that I am going to get another one!
I think that in terms of dresses, I love leisure clothes but I was not able to wear leisure clothes as often as I wanted to. I am a t-shirts and jeans guy, and I really love t-shirts because they are very comfortable. However, as I am a student studying business, I often times need to attend ‘networking events’ that have dress codes such as business casual or business formal. I feel that my freedom to choose my apparels is limited by my career paths and when people see me in suits, they would connect me with the professional, successful image and wouldn’t even know that I am a big fun of tshirts.
As mentioned above, my choices of tattoo is a symbolization of my religious faith. I guess that the reason why I chose tattoo is also that I want to remind myself of my faith everyday. My attitude towards body adornments is that it is a highly personal event, and people should have the freedom to commit to body adornment activities because they own their own body.
Over the years, my apparel choices are shaped more and more by my career choices, and I learned about the meanings of body adornments more. I would say that I become a better informed person in terms of using body adornments to express myself, and I have gain the understandings of how important it is to not be stereotypical towards other people’s body adornment choices.
In my family, my parents are very strict and they believe that one should not get any body customizations if one is a ‘decent person’. Also, they think dressing in sloppy clothes is the symbol of ‘unemployment’ and ‘criminals’. I would say that my parents dress in suits and other professional attired 90% of the time and as a kid growing up in my family, I am taught by their own apparel choices that the way one dress oneself reflects one’s socio-economic, or even moral statuses. Although today I no longer agree with this idea, my parents’ strict choices in apparels still influences me.
The core beliefs and values in my peer community here at UO is that everyone should be respected regardless of their dresses. I have seen people with a whole arm of heavy tattoos giving lectures to students; I have seen people in hippie attires participating in charity events; and I have seen students who dress in t-shirts inventing great technologies in computer labs. I think that UO is a very equal and inclusive place. As a result, we can see people dressed in all kinds of apparels, doing all the piercings or tattoos of their own choices on campus here. I think this is a very healthy campus culture and I wish that the society in general could be more tolerant towards people’s choices of apparels. I also think that there should be no ‘peer pressure’ in one’s choices of body adornment: you should not be forced to commit a tattoo just because your friends all did and you should not hesitate to get one even if your friends/peers hold negative views towards tattooing.