Archives for Unit 05

unit-5 Personal Reflection Essay

Posted by sliu3@uoregon.edu on Sunday, November 2nd 2014

Take some time to reflect on how you dress and customize yourself. Consider and respond to the following questions:

Are there any personal beliefs or values that are supported and expressed by your dress or body adornment?
Why do you make the choices you do?
How has this changed over the years?

For my personal dress or body adornment, I open to a variety of clothes styles and I am not a type of person that chases after top fashion. I enjoy choosing clothes from a variety of styles and make my own match that fits my personal values, which are to be simple and make me feel comfortable and relax. Simpleness and being relax is the core value I have been hold to my dress and appearance. This is also the way I treated to my surroundings. I like to play with friends, and I am a really kind person to them, and I would like to help them as anything I could help. I enjoy shopping but I am not crazy about it. I have a specific set of clothe styles that I always buy when I shop. For top wear, I enjoy choosing sweaters, hoodies or T-shirts, which are really casual and can have variety styles tie to them. For bottom wear, my favorite one is jeans and I also wear sports legging a lot. I have a lot of shoes which can fit different occasion that I may attend. I think family, career this two values influence me most when I choose what to wear. For the family aspect, I am inherent from my family is to be conservative sometimes and to make my dress be acceptable in most situations. Thus, I choose to wear casual and sport wear a lot, since it can be accepted by many people and do not have negative effects on children. For the career aspect, since I am a scientific background student and always need to work in lab. Thus I am more careful about the safety aspect when I wear if I have a lab section to go. I will wear long sleeve and simple T-shirts when I do my professional stuff. In addition, if I need to attend a seminar or have a presentation before professor. I will change my dress to be more professional and give others a good first impression, because it is a respect to others and myself.

My dress also changed over time. The biggest change happened in my transition from China to study in America. I gradually change my lifestyle and personal beliefs about dress. The first think I noticed is that people in the U.S try to dress more comfortable rather than to be dressed brightly all the time. Girls in China especially in the age like me, enjoy chase fashion and to be dressed up and use makeup all the time. After I came to U.S, I found that we did not need to always be prepared when met with people. We just need to be comfortable and dressed as simple as possible. In addition, I changed my mind about body adornment. Before I came to America, I thought tattoo was a very negative thing and only strange people will tattoo. Later, I found that tattoo is actually a very normal thing and people use it to express their personal belief. Even though I do not have tattoo, I am pretty open to it currently.

What were the core beliefs and values in your family and how were they communicated/sustained through dress or body customization?

My family all like to wear sportswear, which could make us feel relax. Being simple is the core belief to us. We usually do not dress any adornments – my mom only wears her wedding wing. The core beliefs and values in my family, such as being conservative and respect to tradition, influenced my dress. For instance, during my high school, my family does not allow me to perm my hair or color it, since they think it is unrespect to my teachers and it will cause negative effects to my classmates. They think girls with colored hair always do not pay much attention on their study and they should be considered as problem kid. Thus, girls should never wear miniskirt, color their hair or have strange hair styles.

What are the core beliefs and values of your peer community? How are they expressed through dress and body adornment?

In my peer community, the core beliefs of most of us are to be casual, friendly and professional sometimes. Since a lot of my peer communities are international students that come from diverse aspects of cultural backgrounds, the most important value of all of us is to be friendly to others and make friends with more people. Thus, we tend to dress more casual and more acceptable in varies situations. Sometimes, my peers also wear professional dress to give other good impression and show their confidence in study or presentation situations. They want other to believe their confidence and believe they can work well with each other.

All above are how my personal values influenced on my dress or body adornment. I will constantly change my dress according to different occasions in my future life to better fit the situation and convey my positive attitude to others through my dressing.

Unit 5- Adornment-Discussion

Posted by sliu3@uoregon.edu on Wednesday, October 29th 2014

Individual 1

I saw a Chinese woman speaking Chinese on the phone on the street. She wore a pair of flat shoes and a large coat. she had a big belly and she did not makeup. I believe she is a pregnant and happy woman because from her face, I can see smiles and they never go away. In Chinese culture and my own value, pregnant mother cannot have makeup and never wear high shoes in order to protect them and their babies. Based on my value, almost every pregnant mother will wear a large and cute clothes everyday and everywhere. I feel she is around 30 years old because her wrinkle lines around her eyes are very light and her skin looks soft and white. There was a Bible in this woman’s hand. I think she is a Christian who would go to the church to pray for her baby to have a healthy and happy life. She always put her hand on her belly, so I believe she loves her baby very much and want to touch her baby all the time. I think the value of families are very important for her. I think the woman is a great Chinese mother. According to my own value, I will do the same thing for my future children, such as wearing large, soft and protective clothes, praying for my children and prohibiting all the dangerous actives.

Individual 2

I saw a male behaviorist prepare to work on the street. He had short and silver color hair. He painted all his clothes, pants and shoes into silver. He also wore a fashion and colorful sunglasses. He voice was husky. He first put a bowl on the street that had some cash inside. Then he played an active music. Following the music, he danced like a robot. I think each action of him looked like an artwork. I believe this is a very hard work for him, because in my value, behaviorists will go on the street and act for a long time. So he must love his behaviorist career very much. Other than making money, I think he wanted to show his professional dance to the audiences. According to my own value, behaviorists can create art in their own form and express the meaning of art on creative ways.

Individual 3

I saw an middle-aged and attractive women walked fast to the other side of the street. She wore a white T-shirt, a bright necklace, a black medium short dress and a pair of high banded shoes. She hold some documents tightly. I believe the documents are very important. I believe she was waking ahead to her office. There was a tired expression on her face, so I think she was doing a lot of works today. I think she was a confident woman who worked very hard. In my value, a business women is confident and attractive. She has very beautiful woman’s shape and I think she had participated many social activities and she has many friends. According to my beliefs, an attractive and successful woman should always have confident smile on their face and she can support herself. She does not need to have beautiful face but she needs to keep her body shape good.