Unit Objectives:
- 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.
Artifact: Unit 05 Personal Reflection Essay
This is an interesting assignment because this is the first time for me to think about the relationship between my dress and my values or beliefs. Usually, I like to wear shirt with a cottony coat. For the lower part of body, I like to wear common straight jeans with canvas shoes or sports shoes. For the colors, I prefer black, blue, grey or white. I like simple colors rather than colorful colors. In addition, I cannot find any other adornments on my body. I am a modest person and I believe that comfort is the most important thing for dress. Therefore, I do not like spending much time to pick up popular or fashionable clothes but just choose the most comfortable options. That is why I like wear shirt, jeans, and canvas/sports shoes with simple colors. As a man, I think I do not need to pay too much attention on dressing up because the most significant personality for man is your ability rather than your appearance. So I will never dress up some adornments, like ear rings and tattoos. In addition, in my values, I think a man is not honest if he has much “fashionable” adornments and I think this kind of value is influenced by Chinese traditional culture. My whole dress style have not changed much over the years. The only change I think is that my dressing style have become more mature. Before I came to the United States, I liked the sports style so I always wore sports T-shirt with sports pants because this is the most comfortable dress. However, as I gradually grew up, I thought the sports style make to look like child not an adult so I changed my dress style but also keep me feeling comfort. I chose the shirt and jeans to replace the sports dress because it looks more mature but also keep comfortable.
I am the only child in my family so my other family members are my parents. My father also really pay attention on the level of comfort of clothes. Therefore, he always wear sports dress, like simple T-shirt and loose sports pants with sports shoes. He always educates me that men should focus on own ability rather than the appearance. He does not allow me to wear adornments, like ear ring or tattoo. As I mentioned before, his opinions also are influenced by the Chinese traditional culture. Unlike my father and me, my mother really focus on her appearance and I believe that this is the natural instinct of women. She has to spend at least half an hour to make up every day. She has many clothes so I cannot describe specifically about her dress. In short, her dress is stylish. In terms of the adornments, she wears necklace, ear rings, bracelet, and so on. She believes that women’s appearance is very important for their life. In addition, she believes that there is no ugly woman but only lazy woman in the world. Therefore, she spends a lots of time to dress up herself.
Among my peer community, there are several different dress styles and also reflect different values and beliefs. Some of my friends have similar dress style with me. They do not like spending much time on their appearance, so they just wear the clothes which make them feeling comfortable in daily life. Similar to me, they wear general jeans, simple shirt with a coat. Most of them study hard because they think the current task as students is to study to prepare for the future rather than pay attention on dressing up. In contrast, some of my peers spending much time on fashion. They like shopping and dress in stylish style. They like wear bright, colorful, fashionable clothes. In their beliefs, all of people just can be young one time in their life, so they should enjoy the life when they young. They believe that good appearance can attract other’s attention so they would feel happy to be noticed by others. In addition, they like to use luxury goods no matter for clothes or adornments, like belts, wallet, necklace, and so on. They think these luxury goods represent fashion. Predictably, the academic record for most of them are not very good.
In conclusion, I think everyone can has different dress style and I believe that the dress style does can reflect the values or beliefs. There is no right or wrong dress style for everyone, everyone has the right to choose own favorite style. We also cannot judge a person only based on his/her appearance.
Reflection:
This assignment helped to interpret people’s beliefs and values through their body decoration and physical appearance through the course material. From watching other people’s body decoration and beauty appearance, I realized that people’s appearance and body customization could reflects their personal values, beliefs and culture background. I also noticed that my physical appearance also reflects my personal values.
Art is a a really powerful thing. In my opinion, people’s physical appearance can be considered as one type of art. It express people’s values and beliefs. We also could find the culture that the person was from from his/her physical appearance. This assignment makes me realized why spies in films change their physical appearance to finish their mission.
Future Intentions:
I wish I could change my identity as I wish because that would be fun to play different role in daily lives. I would like to explore more about how people’s physical appearance can help them change their identity.
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