Artifact 4: Personal Adornment Reflection
Learning Unit Objective
- Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
- Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging.
- Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, sub-cultures and generations.
Original Post
Before doing this assignment, I never thought about these questions. How to dress was not even a problem or bothering for me, because I simply put everything wearable on me. I don’t even often look at the mirror. Right now, I wear a black UO logo long-sleeve shirt and an A-crotch jean, which is my usual style. I like jeans and denim jacket, however the jeans have to be A-crotch. Most American boys are into tight or skinny ones, but they would make me uncomfortable since I am quite skinny. Sometimes I will wear some sweatpants. Sweatpants are very casual and easy to wear. I do not customize myself with a certain limited color. Different colors are full in my closet. If I have to choose some favorites, yellow and green would be the first choices. This is one of the main reasons I like our school.
I don’t think too much when I buy clothes. But I may decide subconsciously every time. Maybe I want myself to look more outgoing and positive from the outside, so I have a range of different outfits with diverse bright colors. As Sanders said, “A person’s physical appearance affects his or her self definition, identity and interaction with others” (Pg 1, Sanders). Indeed, I am a positive person, and I do not intend to be affected by exterior negative factors. For instance, even if the weather is terrible, I will still be in bright color. Moreover, I always think, the color of an outfit can show a person’s personality and living habits. So my clothes can probably show me as an amicable and nice people. I don’t have tattoo or any permanent boy decorations on my body. I kind of want to though. It is cool to have some beautiful tattoos, and yet it will not be cleaned out easily, so once you did wrong or did that merely because of a sudden impulse, it could be a forever regret. I used to be a rebellious teenager back when I went to high school. I had some fights with my parents. At that time, I was fond of black and white style, which was very popular in China. I thought my clothes were my cool attitude, so rings, earrings and necklace were all over my body. Bad memory!
My family is not a traditional Chinese family, since my mom had some education and working experience abroad, so we don’t dress traditional clothes. Both of my parents are in business field. My mom usually dresses bank uniforms, and my dad likes business casual. I don’t like formal outfits at all. I wouldn’t dress them unless there is a significant and formal situation. Even now when I go to work, I just wear some casual clothes. Another reason why I don’t like them might be the fact that they don’t fit me. My size is hard to find if I want to buy a business suit. I don’t think I have a lot of influence from my family, since my parents are very open, I can basically what I like to wear. Some well-of families in China may believe that it is important to dress up elegantly to present the status. But my parents don’t buy much fancy stuff to decorate. This might be the only thing which I am influenced on.
After I came here, I found there is a big difference between the customization of Chinese or Asians and that of Americans. In my Chinese peer community, there are basically three divisions: high-class, game-class, and study-class (I made up all these names, because I can’t find precise translations). High-class is a group of people who dress up fancy. They can afford elegant perfume, expensive handbags, chic outfits and posh cars. I think study is not their priorities and I believe this symbolizes their strong self-esteem. Game-class likes playing games, namely LOL. They usually stay at home whenever they have no classes. However, this does not mean they are not studying. And thus, they don’t care much about how to dress. This group values much on the pursuit of “fun”, due to the preference of playing games with their friends. In effect, they still care about their study. Finally, study-class stands for people who are hard worker in study and usually have high GPAs. Of course, there are some overlaps and exceptions. Someone may care appearance still be a big fan of game, or may spend a lot of money on clothes and still have a high GPA. American peers are either very casual or very sporty. They don’t usually spend big money on clothes. As far as I know, American girls like to do make up more than Asians. Asians generally dress them up in a limited color, but American peers show a range of color choices. It is really a culture gap!
Reflection
This assignment is very inspiring. As Sanders wrote, “…clothing and fashions are adopted in order to display symbolically gender, social status, role, lifestyle, values, personal interests, and other identity features” (1989). Examining the customization and body decoration of me illustrates my personality and family background as a unique individual. Moreover, by investigating the physical appearance, I seek to discover the connection with identity and belongings. The comparison between me, my Asian peer community and American peer community shows some gap and variety in values and belief system among different culture and generations.
The reading helps me evaluate personal values in a big across-cultural context. Different culture will have different belief on physical beauty, and at times it will be different within generations as well. Scarification is an ancient practice, which was “the major approach to decorative and symbolic permanent body modification used by dark-skinned peoples on whom tattooing would be ineffective” (1989). And according to Sanders, for “African tribal groups, scarification is a decorative form primarily intended to indicate one’s position in a social structure”. (1989).
Future Intention
I believe in the art of personal adornment. An outfit can show a person’s personality and life attitude. I will present myself in my own way to show my identity and values.I will use the knowledge learned to keep an open mind when evaluating a person based on their outward appearances. At the same time, I will probably take more fashion lesson to work on my appearance modification, and try to show another dimension of my identity and personality. And I will be aware of others’ conception on my appearance and make it benefit my future relationship developing and career constructing.
Bibliography
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