24 October 2010

Cultural Clothing

Cultural question : why is it that women seem tend to hang on to traditional clothing when they move to a new area much more so than men?

Illustration: today driving through the Tibetan Cultural Center area in our area, where the Dalai Lama is making a visit, and women are wearing beautiful dresses and colors; men are wearing western style suits. Every day I see South Asian women (Hindi, Sikh and Muslim) in traditional modest flowing dress and their men in ... western style pants and a button up shirt. Chinese lady friends wear Chinese fashions; men wear western. West Indies ladies and African ladies wear lots of colors, and sometimes their men do too. Hmm. Maybe it's easier for the men to switch because our western woman's styles are just not modest or dressy enough? I wonder if someone has figured out a way for their university to arrange a paid study into this phenomenon.)

photo 1: from Canada.com
photo "portrait... Indian couple": from 123rf.com stock photos
photo "Tibetans": from agnt.org
photo "Sikh family": from Sikh farmers of California (note - realize that keeping long hair, and keeping it tidy and clean, requires a turban of some sort by the Sikh gentlemen, even as they switch to Western suits)
photo 5: from Xsightn Fotografi