Tag Archives: clothing

Styles of Sari

Nationality: Singapore
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Singapore
Performance Date: Apr 13 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

My informant AM is an international student from Singapore, and her family is originally from Bengal, India. She goes back to Bengal every year, and spend most of the time in the capital city Kolkata.

 

Main piece:

AM: “For me, I only wear Sari in certain time, like in the festival ‘Durga Puja’. We have this Indian festival in Singapore and we celebrate it every year. I got my own Sari at the age of 17 or 18, and then, I learned how to wear it, since there’re certain ways and so many ways to wear it…

“There are women who wear it everyday, like my grandma and people at her age. They have home Sari, Sari for sleeping, and Sari for going out. And my mom’s generation is more modern. They have Sari, and also a more modern style of clothing.

Sari is consisted of one drape, you wrap it around the waist and shoulder. And normally, you wear a blouse and a petticoat underneath the Sari drape. While the more popular modern style is you wear a Kurta, the long top, and below is pants like Patiala, or just like straight – Kameez, or skinny pants like Churidar. Most of the time, when we’re at home, my mom would just wear normal clothes, top and panyts, but if we go out to visit someone, she will wear those. And if it’s a really special occasion, she’ll wear Sari.

As for me, I never wear Sari since I come to the State. [laugh]”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a section from a conversation with my informant AM about how Indian culture and traditions are practiced in Singapore.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

I find Indian as the culture that remains its traditional clothing the longest among many old civilizations. Two weeks ago when I went to Regal LA Live to watch movie, I saw many Indian-looking people wearing Sari (for women) or Achkan (for men) having some kind of open ceremony for a film. Wearing traditional clothing in this modern time is really new to me, especially because China has so many traditional clothing styles but people don’t wear them and don’t know how to wear them.

At the same time, modernization is again reflected in this piece, that according to AM, the younger the generation is, the less people wear Sari in less occasion. This also reflects on globalization, that people in different culture all over the world wear similar cloth, T-shirt and pants. It seems that all these traditions are dying out.

The Proper Attire for a Muslim Wedding

Nationality: Trinidadian
Age: 58
Occupation: Housekeeper, Nanny
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 04/05/15
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 58-year old woman from Trinidad, who has lived in the United States for 45 years. She was raised by her parents in Trinidad and lived in a house with her parents, grandparents, and nine siblings. She attended primary school, and then began working as a housekeeper and nanny. She loves cooking, mainly without recipes or set amounts of any ingredients, having learned her recipes “from my mom and aunts and from trial and error.” The following is what she said when I asked about her step daughter’s wedding a few years ago, of which I was in attendance.

 

Informant: “Abby’s wedding was a big one. Oh gosh, it feels so long ago now!”

Interviewer: “It was beautiful!”

Informant: “It was…”

Interviewer: “Do you remember going dress shopping with mom and me before? Can you tell me about it?”

Informant: “Yes, yes. Well for a Muslim wedding you need to have the proper dress. It is not like American weddings where anything you wear is fine. Because if you come to the Muslim wedding and you are dressed improperly, you may be asked to leave. And more than that, it is important to the bride and groom that you wear the proper clothes.”

Interviewer: “What would be improper to wear?”

Informant: “Something short, anything that shows a woman’s legs would be improper. Respect—modesty—is very very important in Muslim religion and culture.

Interviewer: “I understand. Can you tell me more about where we went to get the outfits for Abby’s wedding?”

Informant: “We went to Devon Avenue, a whole street of Indian stores, and we went into the best one to buy a saree. You tried on so many! They all looked so cute on you. We picked a colorful one, I can’t remember if it was purple or blue…

Interviewer: “It was purple!”

Informant: “Yes, it was. And then for your mom we got a green and maroon one.”

Interviewer: “Does anyone wear black sarees? Or white ones?”

Informant: “No. Everyone, at weddings is supposed to wear colored sarees. That is what’s done at weddings. The varna—that means color—means something always! Red is for the bride. Abby wore red. Colorful sarees make for a happier, more festive wedding.

 

Thoughts:

It doesn’t say anywhere in the Quraan that guests at a Muslim wedding are required to wear colorful sarees, or sarees at all for that matter. But it is a custom—a rule, almost—that guests do so. This reflects the modesty of the culture that is expected and has continued to be important to the Muslim people, especially in rituals. While all Muslims do not dress modestly all the time, it is expected that they do so when weddings and other religious rituals take place.

The colorfulness of the sarees at the wedding ceremony, aside from making photos beautiful and bright, makes the ceremony a very festive event. Interestingly, my informant told me that red is often the color of the bride in Muslim weddings, versus the Christian and Jewish white-dress custom. Red is bright and bold; it symbolizes fertility. It is fitting that this would be the color a bride wears on her wedding day, if what she wears is to symbolize the step she is embarking on in her life.

Ponchos- Ecuadorian

Nationality: Irish, Scottish, German
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Angie spent the summer of 2011 in Ecuador in to visit family, do “touristy things” and study the language. She already knew some things about the language because she had studied for four years with a professor who had lived in Ecuador. She visited cities and towns near the Andes, like the city Ambato and surrounding areas. She lived in Ambato, traveled to the Amazon twice, to the beach once and to the capital, Quito, once.

Traditional garb in Ecuador consists of ponchos and pants for the men and wraps and skirts for the women. One can tell what community a person belonged to based on the color and style of their clothing. Many different tribes live in the Amazon and many in the Andes, each with their own color and style.

Women make ponchos for their sons as a coming-of-age gift. Angie would see women carrying large containers of sheep’s wool around with them throughout the day, meticulously constructing thread. Sheep’s thread is much more expensive than alpaca thread, so while tourist ponchos are generally made of alpaca thread and cost around $20, women make their sons sheep thread ponchos at a value of about $100. In addition, women go to great lengths to dye and treat the wool so that it is waterproof. This is a coming-of-age gift because the boys begin to represent their culture by wearing the poncho. Because so much time and effort goes into making these ponchos, they generally last the boys a very long time.

Angie noted some other interesting things regarding clothing in Ecuador. Although she doesn’t remember the exact styles, single and married women would wear their wraps differently, as a sign of modesty. Also, she saw a group of children in a playground- some were wearing ponchos and some were wearing very Americanized clothing.

These Ecuadorian tribes that Angie met put a lot of their identity into their traditional clothing. Based on colors and style, one can observe an individual’s community or marital status. This is a very outward, very public display of one’s identity.

She’s got her shoes on backwards. – Korean Expression

Nationality: Korean
Age: 51
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Cerritos, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

“She’s got her shoes on backwards.”

 

My informant first heard this saying in her hometown, the urban city of Pusan, Korea.  It is duty in Korea for males to devote two years of their lives to army training.  The training is not optional but mandatory.  As soon as they were called, the boys would have to leave everything they were doing to move into a military base for two years.  “She’s got her shoes on backwards” is a common saying when a young man returns from his army training.  The saying means that his girlfriend before the army training would have married someone else by the time he returns.  She would did not faithfully wait for him.  Gwi heard this saying when she was in high school and her two older brothers were leaving for army training, and their mother warned them that by the time they return they should not expect their girlfriends to be patiently waiting because they would most likely “have their shoes on backwards.”

Apparently it happened quite frequently in Korea that a girl would not wait for her man to return from training, especially if she were faced with proposals from other men.  I can see how the saying originated.  When you have your shoes on backwards, your shoes point to a different direction.  Instead of walking to her man, she would walk the other direction to a different man.  If she has her shoes on backwards, she would walk away from her man.

Style of Dress – American

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 33
Occupation: IT Manager
Residence: Westlake, Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational French

Some American men wear very baggy pants and let them sag to show their boxers. The informant learned the following folk explanation as to the origin of the style “maybe right around high school, or, um, when [she] was just past high school and [her] little brother was doing it when he was in high school. She doesn’t remember from whom she first heard the explanation, but she recalls first seeing the style in high school: “Um, it seemed to be something that, uh, a lot of the African-American guys would do in high school. Uh, but now I see a lot of people do it and it’s just . . . it’s not good [laughter].”

The informant heard that the style originated in prison, where the low man on the sexual totem pole would wear saggy pants: “Basically, uh, young boys and even grown men tend to wear baggy pants or pants that they sag down past their boxer shorts, showing almost all of their boxer shorts, wearing pants that are, you know, a good ten sizes too bit for them. What they don’t realize is the true meaning of the sagging jeans, sagging pants. Uh, it actually stems from prison. Uh, the man who would wear the saggy pants, um, that were sagging past his butt actually indicated that he was the man that men would go to, uh, for, uh, for intercourse. And it showed that he was basically the bitch of the cellblock. So, uh, basically indicated that he was the one who would, uh, take it in the rear, for lack of better terms.”

The informant regards the style itself with a mixture of rue and amusement: “This nugget of knowledge is something that I wish more younger men would understand . . . Um . . . but I don’t think most men get that today who sag their pants. They think it looks cool but they don’t really see that is indicated that they are the, the prison bitch. So I think that that’s interesting. Um, if they do know this they don’t seem to care. Uh, but I think it’s just something that most people who sag their pants aren’t familiar with. So they are, um, unassumingly, uh, displaying their wares, as it were.

The informant shared the explanation with her nephew, “who actually seemed to have gotten the hint once it was explained to him.” She says that she would share it with anyone she felt comfortable with and wanted to have more respect for him- or herself: “If I was comfortable with approaching the individual, egh, like if it was my nephew. Or my brother, or somebody who, um, who is younger than me who I would be an authority—kind of an authority figure to, who would respect my, uh, input. I’m not just going to stop a random guy on the street and say, ‘Hey, you know that means you’re a prison bitch?’ ’cause that’s just not cool. But I think I would if it was somebody that I cared about, like a relative or a workmate or somebody that I, y’know, had a little bit more respect for and wanted them to respect themselves more, I would share that information with them.”

The folk explanation could be true, although it does seem like a story that might be dispensed by parents and other adults to discourage children from wearing a style their relatives find distasteful, as the informant used it on her nephew. It would be effective for that purpose because prison inmates are looked down upon and anal sex is still somewhat taboo, so impressionable boys might not wish to associate themselves with the former or symbolically invite the latter. Saggy pants could be considered an American folk costume, since the style has not been much endorsed by authorities—the folk group being, if this story is true, prison inmates and their imitators.