Thursday, November 1, 2007

Homework #3

1. Reflecting about today's class:
Today we discussed the language of clothes. After listening to the lecture and the meaning of colors in clothing, answer the following questions:

1. Do you judge people according to what they wear? Why?
> Yes, I do. I accidentry and immediately judge people from the clothes what they wear. My head does not say judge people with clothes, but I do this automatically. Becasue it is first thing I can do and get information about the person. When I see a person who is wearing skirt, I think she may be girlish and quiet. It depends on what kind of skirt it is and also the color it has, though. As well as there are so many kinds of bottoms, tops, and items like accessories, hats, bags, and so on, there are so many people in a world. Therefore, no wonder everyone wears different kinds of clothes and the different way of wearing. I don't think all personality shows from what people wear, but it shows one part of the identity.

2. Do you think Japanese society puts an importance on clothing when judging other people from another country?
>Yes, I do. I think sometimes that is true. Most of contries has a national (ethnic) costume for them. If people from another country wear the national costume in public place in Japan, Japanese can guess where they are from and judge what kind of background they have. But this is just a guess so sometimes people may misread the person. This misreading is scary. I have a friend who likes wearing military uniform. When I saw the personat first time, I thought this person might have strong feeling for a war, fighting, and patriotic or prond of a military and it made me kind of scary. After I got to know that person well, I knew he is really nice person, but my first impression was not so good. In these days, we can hear we should learn and know different culture or people talk about cross-culturely theme on TV and newspaper. That causes Ministry of Education is planning to add English class at elementary school. Of couese, that purpose is for being able to speak English, but also learn cross culture communication to not have bias view from the first impression.

3. What colors are you wearing now? Do they reflect your mood?
> Right now, I am wearing black short-sleeved sweater, bule jeans, brown jacket, gold neckless, and black boots.
Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery.
Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.
Brown is associated with friendships, outdoors, inexpensive, reliability, credibility, endurance, stability, simplicity, comfort, longevity, intimacy, tranquility, masculine, nurturing, contentment, strength, sensuality, productivity, passivity, fertility, generosity, substance, practicality, hard work
Gold is associated with success, high quality, money
I think they reflect my mood a little bit, because I need to work and study hard, want success and money, have secret(a thing I do not want to talk about), always want to trust people, and so on. However, I think this is not only today's mood, it is always like that. Because I am wearing brown sweater today so I am friendly but i am not friendly when I am not wearing brown? It is not true. Even if i am not wearing brown, I would be friendly. People have a favorite color and tend to wear that on clothes. Therefore, color shows mood but also shows personality.


2. Preparation for next weeks topic:
Next week we will discuss friends, please prepare by answering the following questions:

1. What are some subjects that you will never discuss with a friend?
>This was kind of difficult question for me. It depends on how much close to the friends. If she/them is really close to me and I can trust her/them a lot, I would talk anything/everything I want to. But if she/them is not close to me, I would choose the topic. Eather of them, I don't think I want to discuss or share erotic or sexual kinds of stuff. This topic is embarrassing to talk for me.

2. Do you have different friends for different parts of your life? If so, how are they different to you? Do you talk about different things? Go to different places? Give me some examples.
>I would say yes. I do not talk same topics to everyone. Maybe I pick up the topics for each person naturally.
For example,
when I talk to personA, I talk about school and some other friends.
when I talk to person B, I talk about part-time job.
when I talk to personC, I talk about love, dating, or boyfrined.
Sometimes I talk about all of this to personD.

Homework #2

1.Death and Funerals:

a. Do you have any international friends or a host family? If so, how would you express your condolences to them if a family member died? If not, then how would you express condolences to an American host family if their Grandmother died?
> Yes, I do. I have some international friends and a host family.
If their family member died, I would say...
I am sorry about this happening.
I am sorry about your loss.
Please accept my deepest(sincerest) condolence.

b. Have you ever been to a foreign funeral?
> No, I have not. I have never been to a foreign funeral.
However, I have been to a memorial service in America. One of the Asian studies professor was passed away. He was Japanese and Christian. He had Korean wife. He had lots of interesting background for me. During the memorial service, His wife, close friends and professors, and his students had speech for him to everyone. After that, we ate some food like, crackers with creem cheese, cakes, cookies, and sushi. During eating, we talked and shared about him with people who attended the memorial service. It was quite valuable time and experience for me.


2. The language of Clothes (preparation for next weeks topic):

a-1. Why are Japanese designer label crazy?
> Designer labels are on clothing and other personal accessory items. People think clothes with designer labels are luxury, splendor, and have strong power to make people feel rich and happy. Even if it is expensive, people work and save money to get them. Some people go to China or Korea to get some items with designer label because it is cheaper than getting in Japan. People want them that much.

a-2. Why is what you wear so important?
> When people see people, they see people's face and clothes what they wear. What people wear make first impression of the person and is one of the important and big personarity. People judge what kind of person she/he is from the clothes what they wear and what color their clothes are. People can choose clothes's color at clothes stores. There are several colors with one kind of clothes. There is some reason to pick one color of them and the color tells people what kind of feeling and personarity that person has. Also, People including me care about what other people think about me/them. Therefore, I think what we wear is important.

b.What does “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” mean to you?
> People should not judge, decide, conceive, and think about people or things from only looks, visual, and appearances. People should know the inner face and content. It is difficult but once people get to know the inner face and content, it will make different impression of them.