[i习作temp] issue208 by gutinglizzy [复制链接]

gutinglizzy
UID: 2470184

寄托新兵

Rank: 2

声望: 1
寄托币: 154
注册时间: 2008-3-12
精华: 0
帖子: 0

电梯直达

楼主

发表于 2009-6-23 22:10:25 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

208"The way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. You can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people."

Image that we come to another country different from ours, walking on the street among people who look, dress, and act distinctly, what could we feel? Of course, we could tell the difference from us, at least superficially, from the appearance and behavior of its people, but when it comes to the society’s ideas and values, it is not that easy just by observing the appearance and behavior of its people.

To begin with, it is admittedly true that in some respects people’s appearance and behavior can reflect their traditional customs, and represent their social role as well as reveal their attitudes. From the perspective of dress, in some places, especially places that emphasis much on religious beliefs, such as Arab, India, Pakistan and so on, women there are always vein their face with a thin silk, which indicates their low social status. From the angle of behavior, countries as Japan, South Korean have definite social rules which requires the younger generation of a family to bow to their elder people every time they meet, expressing the respect to the elders. Apparently language that people use can also reflect a society’s customs. All these aspects of the outward appearance of a culture’s people do inform us of their society’s ideas and values, which accumulated through a long history.

However, people’s appearance and behavior do not always tell the truth, that is people tend to camouflage themselves sometimes, which could not reveals the inner and real attitudes and interests and thus result in misunderstanding of the society’s ideas and values behind them. In some oppressed societies, people are unwillingly to express the inner and real attitudes toward the society, because every word against the authorities will lead to unfortunate to the individual who says it. For instance, in ancient China of some dynasties, people who are trying to point out some mistakes of the empire are always being killed at the end. As a result, the society’s other people, most of them are reluctant to tell what they want to say and hence we could not tell much about the society’s ideas and values from the people’s appearance and behavior in such a society.

Moreover, people worldwide tend to appear and behave like one and each other and it is not easy to tell the society’s ideas and values behind them. Nowadays technologies and economics has undergone an increasingly development, it is easier for people from different parts in one country or people from different countries to communicate each other, whether by means of transportation as planes, trains, and cars, or by means of Internet, as MSN, video camera or so on. People may find them consciously or unconsciously influenced by each other and they are tend to dress, talk, and act like each other which may owing to fashion, ease, or so. For example, youngsters in our country are desperately chasing behind the fashion of western countries. We could people wearing style of clothes much like Weston counties, LV, Gucci for example. So, it may difficult for us to tell the difference, let alone with the society’s ideas and values under such circumstances.

In sum, while I agree that in some aspects we can tell much about a society’s ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people, but it is not always working out, since factor as outward pressure and desire to be in the fashionable road sometimes obscure it.