WP3 JK uniforms in China
JK, Joshi Koukousei, means high school girls in Japanese. JK uniforms are mandatory clothes designed for Japanese high school girls, which are becoming a fashion trend in China in recent years because of the popularity of Japanese animations and subcultures. People can see a lot of different ages young women wearing JK uniforms in shopping malls, playgrounds, cosplay exhibitions, and some other out campus places. Actually, people in China have some controversies about JK uniforms and the people who wear them. Do JK uniforms have a strong connection with Japanese animations and subculture? What is the difference between the fake and original JK uniforms in China? Is it reflect the problem of pedophiles? Young women in China still love the cute outlook and the culture behind JK uniforms, while JK uniforms are misunderstood by people after they become popular in China because people, especially those who do not have a full understanding of the culture behind JK uniforms.
Japanese school uniforms first originated during the Meiji era, when the Meiji Emperor opened Japan to a number of western countries for trade and business. Japanese culture began to mix with Western culture as a result of the newfound influence from foreign countries. This mixture took many forms and resulted in a new variety of products, technologies, fashions, subcultures, and ways of life. One of the noticeable influences was the transformation of Japanese school uniforms. As time passing, JK uniforms became the daily uniforms for high school girls and appeared in Japanese animations. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Japanese animations were accepted by Chinese young people. More and more Chinese young people started to watch Japanese animations and cosplay their favorite characters in the animations. As a result, one of the most typical costumes in Japanese animation became more and more popular among the Chinese young generation. For example, there was a Japanese animation based on a high school orchestral called Blowing the Tuba. After the widely spread of that animations, almost all of my friends who were interested in the Japanese animations started to cosplay the JK uniforms outfits of the female main character. Lots of young women bought that uniforms because they were infected by the positive fighting spirit of the leading female characters in the animation.
The JK uniforms were misunderstood because not everyone understands and likes the Japanese animations and subculture. After the popularity of JK uniforms, some bloggers and YouTubers have started sharing their JK uniforms on social media to garner attention. To garner more attention, they cut the length of the sailor collar shirts and pleated skirts to show off the curve of the body. Therefore, for those people who did not familiar with the origin and were only attracted by the cute outlook of JK uniforms, they believed that what they saw on the internet is their favorite JK uniforms. In this case, some young women do not have a clear realization of the real outlook of JK uniforms.
The popularity of the JK uniforms on social media has raised controversy because some people believed the popularity of JK uniforms reflects the patriarchal gaze of Chinese society. In order to pursue the market, merchants changed the design of JK uniforms. The changes in design reflect a phenomenon of Chinese people’s pursuit of pale, thin, and young. The main colors of the Chinese JK uniforms are bright colors with low saturation, which shows the pale and nonaggressiveness of young women. For example, one of the most fashionable pleated skirts in Chinese JK uniforms is called “Lemon sea salt”, which is a light lemon yellow skirt with an aqua blue checked pattern on it. When the light is projected into the cloth, a warm light will reflect on people’s faces to make them look gentle. The size of JK uniforms is usually smaller than the other normal, daily clothes. In this case, women who want to wear JK uniforms will lose weight to fit them into the clothes. In addition to the original purpose of JK uniforms, JK uniforms satisfied all the definitions of beautiful. The Chinese men were attracted to the young women who wear JK uniforms because the nonaggressive young women with pale and clean skin make them feel docile and easy to control. However, some others think that it is not the JK uniforms that reflect a patriarchal aesthetic because Japanese high school women’s uniforms do not have those elements. Most of the JK uniforms in Japan include a white shirt, sweater vest, skirt, suit coat, and boots. The pleated skirt must extend beyond the knee. Also, the color of their daily uniforms is dark colors since dark colors have dirt-proof usage.
People did not make properly classified JK uniforms is the second reason that caused the misunderstanding of them. With the influence of Asian patriarchal culture, Japanese society should have some similar controversy of JK uniforms. However, the JK uniforms in Japan only have two purposes: the daily uniforms for high school girls and a costume for compensated dating women. Because of this reason, Japanese students do not wear JK uniforms after school and all high schools have restricted rules on the outlook of JK uniforms. For example, all the girls cannot dye their hair, change the design of their uniforms, and the length of skirts should be over the knees. As a result, the Japanese only think about their JK uniforms as high school girls’ daily uniforms.
In conclusion, a lot of intercultural objects or artworks have some problems with inaccurate communication and misunderstanding. With the spread of new objects, it is hard to transform all of the elements and background from their original countries. The misunderstanding of cross-cultural projects not only causes people’s views of them in a new region, but also enforces the popularity of some wrong points of value. In order to figure out this problem, people need to make rules for the development of new cross-cultural objects.
Resources:
1. https://learnjapanese123.com/japanese-school-uniforms/
2. https://japanyugen.com/otaku-japanese-obsessive-subculture-explained/
