Why do people change the way they dress?
“
I was born and raised in Japan … but my mother works in the UN,
so we travelled a lot... I’ve lived in Switzerland, I’ve lived in the
Philippines and in Bangladesh... Visually I think, especially Vancouver,
has a very large east Asian population, so just walking around people
can’t necessarily tell that I’m not from here… but internally I do know
that I’m not from here…
I do dress slightly differently from how people born and raised in
Canada …but also slightly differently from people from where I am
from originally. Having moved between countries, I definitely do
feel like I have to adjust the way that I dress…for practical reasons, I
wouldn’t be wearing a thick hoody in the Philippines … it’s just way
too hot, but other things I had to adjust to, let’s say, respect the culture
of that place. So in Bangladesh, for instance, the majority of people
there are Muslim, so it’s disrespectful to show a lot of your skin…
I wouldn’t want too many people to generalize about [me] just based
off my clothing, so I wouldn’t want to generalize about other people
either.”
– Aki Takeuchi, Undergraduate International Student
18