[A print journal wants to publish some of my poems, so I've sent them this poem, among others, to consider. Should they decline it for whatever reason, it will reappear back here.]
Nice insight, Linh. The United States of Fruit of the Loom and B.V.D. Makes me think of all those kids in school wearing pajamas. How do you teach them? Hell, how do you "look" at them? Unattire for an I don't care world, an I don't care nation. Maybe we'll evolve, de-evolve to the point where we don't even wear clothes. Third World couture. Global warming and all. H'py 9/11
One quick thought about "Third World couture": Generally speaking, the people who dress badly there are those who've been displaced, urbanized and fitted badly into a pseudo American lifestyle. Existing on the fringe of this empire, they don't go naked but wear sad or ridiculous versions of American fashion.
I mean, in the hills of Vietnam, most of the tribal people have always dressed very carefully, some of them even elaborately, but as they're dragged into what's left of modernity, some of them are starting to wear ragged T-shirts with "California Fine View," Michael Jackson or even Rambo on their chest.
yes the Victorian white lady who lived with the last of the free roaming Australian aboriginals described this well the ragged dirty and broken people she saw on the outskirts of white settlements were transformed into 'princes of the desert' when encountered in their native habitat the terrifying featureless outback...
Well, of course I was being sarcastic, while engaging in associative thinking and had no idea when I began the comment I'd wind up at "Third World Couture"--it just sort of popped into my head once I got to "don't even wear clothes." But I was probably thinking of my wife and her family and friends in Mindanao, where the style of dress is minimalist and, yes, oft-Americanized (hand me downs and thrift store fare that arrived in balikbayan boxes).
When I was in Saigon during 1999-2001, I could often be found in an alley wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and plastic flip flops, so I was emblematic of the worst of Third World couture, for sure, but then again, I was only hanging out in an alley. If I was to go into town, I would put on a decent shirt, and in fact, the best shirts I still own were all tailor-made in Vietnam. This only sounds fancy, because Vietnamese still routinely go to seamstresses and tailors, and it wasn't so long ago when every grown man in Saigon had all of his shirts tailor-made, even if he only owned a handful.
A friend got a job as a research scientist and worked briefly at the firm's China factory until afterwards his own job was outsourced. A local girl wore a T-Shirt that said Happy Camper to work every day. Once when chatting he asked the translator to tell her what it meant in Mandarin and she ran out of the room screaming, after which the translator explained to him that she was unfamiliar with the concept of 'camping' as outdoorsy Anglo-Europeans use it and the only meaning she was aware of was concentration/ internment camp.
8 comments:
Nice insight, Linh. The United States of Fruit of the Loom and B.V.D. Makes me think of all those kids in school wearing pajamas. How do you teach them? Hell, how do you "look" at them? Unattire for an I don't care world, an I don't care nation. Maybe we'll evolve, de-evolve to the point where we don't even wear clothes. Third World couture. Global warming and all. H'py 9/11
Hi Swindled,
One quick thought about "Third World couture": Generally speaking, the people who dress badly there are those who've been displaced, urbanized and fitted badly into a pseudo American lifestyle. Existing on the fringe of this empire, they don't go naked but wear sad or ridiculous versions of American fashion.
Linh
I mean, in the hills of Vietnam, most of the tribal people have always dressed very carefully, some of them even elaborately, but as they're dragged into what's left of modernity, some of them are starting to wear ragged T-shirts with "California Fine View," Michael Jackson or even Rambo on their chest.
yes the Victorian white lady who lived with the last of the free roaming Australian aboriginals described this well the ragged dirty and broken people she saw on the outskirts of white settlements were transformed into 'princes of the desert' when encountered in their native habitat the terrifying featureless outback...
Well, of course I was being sarcastic, while engaging in associative thinking and had no idea when I began the comment I'd wind up at "Third World Couture"--it just sort of popped into my head once I got to "don't even wear clothes." But I was probably thinking of my wife and her family and friends in Mindanao, where the style of dress is minimalist and, yes, oft-Americanized (hand me downs and thrift store fare that arrived in balikbayan boxes).
Hi Swindled,
When I was in Saigon during 1999-2001, I could often be found in an alley wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and plastic flip flops, so I was emblematic of the worst of Third World couture, for sure, but then again, I was only hanging out in an alley. If I was to go into town, I would put on a decent shirt, and in fact, the best shirts I still own were all tailor-made in Vietnam. This only sounds fancy, because Vietnamese still routinely go to seamstresses and tailors, and it wasn't so long ago when every grown man in Saigon had all of his shirts tailor-made, even if he only owned a handful.
Linh
For more on this, do check out this 2010 article, "Dissing T-Shirts".
A friend got a job as a research scientist and worked briefly at the firm's China factory until afterwards his own job was outsourced. A local girl wore a T-Shirt that said Happy Camper to work every day. Once when chatting he asked the translator to tell her what it meant in Mandarin and she ran out of the room screaming, after which the translator explained to him that she was unfamiliar with the concept of 'camping' as outdoorsy Anglo-Europeans use it and the only meaning she was aware of was concentration/ internment camp.
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