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.

I sit in a coffee shop in downtown area and watched people for an hour. I am surprised by how many unique individuals I encountered during this one hour people watched and I found many interesting people.

 

One of the people is a tall, white woman with short hair. I guess she is around 25-30 years old. She appeared to be very serious looking and she wore a pair of glasses. She is around 5’10 tall and she is very skinny. She wore a marmot brand dark blue puffy jacket and a pair of black jeans. She had a mountain bike with her and she was wearing professional triathlon shoes. According to my observations about her physical appearance, I think that she is very active, healthy and fond of sport events. She looks very refreshed and energetic. According to an estimation of her apparels and her bike, I think she must be a middle class young professional, although I am unsure of her specific occupation. Moreover, I think that she is the type of people that don’t usually show their emotions through facial expressions and she seems very cool regardless.

 

Another person is a black male with drop waist, baggy camo pants and half of his underwear exposed. He appears to be around 18-22 years old, very skinny, wearing baseball snap-on that says’ punk’ and a black tank top. As he was walking, he was smoking weed and his postures were very strange. I guess his drop waist pants made him unable to walk in a more natural way. He also threw random glances and stares at people passing by and I think that he probably didn’t have anything to be busy with. To be honest, I don’t really have a good impression of this guy and I thought that his smoking of weed was really inconsiderate to people around him because of the smell and everything. He appeared to be somewhat ‘ghettoish’ and reminded me of the group of teenagers that robbed me on a bus last summer. I think that his health condition is okay but not great because he smokes weed.

 

The third person I find interesting is an Asian American girl dressed in crop tops, high waist shorty shorts, a pair of black high heels and was wearing a floral hairband. She also had very heavy make-ups on and her blue eye shadows seem very exaggerating. She appeared to be very happy and was walking super fast even with those high heels. She looked tanned and toned, so I think she is really healthy and happy. I guess that she is a college peer around 18-25 and I feel that she is very typical Asian American and very different from my female friends who are from Asian. My Asian female friends are generally more reserved and dress in a more conservative way. I am not too sure about her economic status but I guess she is a wise shopper because her apparels seem very trendy and fashionable. She looked like she is a very sociable person.

 

I think that my values come from my family: my parents love outdoor activities, and hence I am familiar with the lifestyles of people who seem out-doorsy. I also seemed a bit racist because of my bad experience of being robbed on the bus. I am very aware of the difference between Asian Americans and Asians so I think that is a good thing that I have culture consciousness.