Digital Catalogues | Page 18

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