Horrified
In September my high school here will have a group of fifteen students visit from a high school in Portland. We have been doing many things to prepare for their visit, one of which was visiting the schools website.
They have a page all about their Japan trip, which is fun. And they also have other pages showing different school activities. One of the pages is of the school prom photos.
My old supervisor took one look at the prom pictures and was horrified. There were strapless dresses, spaghetti straps, and cleavage all over the place. (Side note – she had to ask me what the word for the “crevice between the breasts” was. That was a bit awkward.) In Japan that type of revealing attire is almost unheard of.
As we were chatting she asked me to look at the pictures and tell her what I thought. For the most part they were pretty tame, standard prom fare, in my opinion. Sure, a few of the dresses and photos lacked taste, but for the most part I found very little that was objectionable.
This launched us into a very interesting conversation about revealing clothing in America and Japan. In America most of the revealing is done on the top half, whereas in Japan it is the opposite. They reveal their legs. In fairness, many of them have some damn fine legs. Interestingly, both of us find the revealing clothes in the other culture surprising and horrifying.
Need I say more? There are many examples of this sort of fashion here in Japan. I can barely leave my house without my jaw dropping to the floor. Even after being here for as long as I have, I am still shocked and surprised to find how short those skirts (and shorts) can get. Now that it is getting hotter, I am finding that they can actually go even shorter than I previously imagined.
Where is the baby? They usually come with a baby.
Yeah, American girls have breasts, Japanese girls have legs. Therefore that’s what they show. I’ve had several talks with older Japanese women about how Japanese young people wear scandalously short skirts. We never talked about revealing tops but I’m guessing their reaction would be similar.
I have the same response as you do to the shortness of Japanese skirts. The school girls wear their skirts at lengths I think are only really appropriate for night clubs. I know in my head why they do it (it’s what’s in Fashion, they’ll be part of the club if they do) but I still constantly wondered “why are these girls sexualizing themselves so much?” whenever I saw groups of school girls walking down the street.
What do your student’s think of American Fashions?
On the more serious side. Is it possible that some of the “horror” comes from the fact that these clothes are worn during a “school activity” and are actually published for all to see on the school website? If I recall correctly school uniforms are worn for all school related functions in Japan, even if their skirts are hiked up it is still a uniform.
I read somewhere it was sort of taboo to have revealing top-half clothing in many asian countries (I heard an anecdote about a tourist in rural Thailand almost getting arrested for wearing a tank top; I’m sure in Japan it’s not illegal but still pretty gauche), but the tiny skirts/shorts just aren’t a big deal…
I always thought manga and anime were taking certian fanservice liberties as far as school uniform skirt and gym short lengths were concerned, until I actually saw them
my only question is, how do they sit down? I mean, that girl is waiting for a bus or something right? I know Japanese public transit is much cleaner than here but I still wouldn’t want my naked butt on the seats…
Am now reconsidering which season I want to visit in…