How does your nationality affect the way you dress?
Does living in Vancouver affect the way you dress?
Do students dress differently at ubc?
“
I did my undergrad in Guangzhou and I did high school in Sichuan
province. For high school we had to wear school uniform, because
it’s a way to show unity of the class... You represent the school and
you are part of a class... It’s to create...a sense of belonging. The
reason why we wear school uniform is because people want to avoid
the envy or jealousy... In high school you should pay more attention
to what you study, to the scores, rather than focus on what people
wear. There is a difference between high school and uni- versity
because at university I could wear what I want... I spent a lot of time
on what other people wear, especially what women wear...
The changes when I was in Guangzhou and when I was in Canada...
is that people pay less attention to what you wear here at UBC. But
back in China you find people looking at you and may judge you and
you can notice it by their looks. So in China you really feel like you
are in a collective atmosphere, where the person’s behaviour is always
situated or embedded in the environment and your behaviour has a
kind of consequences... Here, I feel whatever, it’s so casual... Even
me, I don’t care what I wear, because more time and energy is spent
on study.”
− Shirley Tao, Graduate International Student
17