Week 2 - Embodying Culture

Week 2
Fara Suiza
ASA141
Embodying Culture via Clothing

Before I visited Korea in 2018, I had conflicting feelings towards the idea of wearing a Hanbok. The thought of wearing the traditional dress of another culture for "touristic" purposes felt like it was just an attempt cosplay another culture. However, when I arrived in Seoul, it's actually widely encouraged. Palaces like the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul give tourists free entry if they're wearing a Hanbok. However, economically, it's cheaper to pay the $3 adult entrance fee than to rent a Hanbok for $16-18 for a set number of hours, but by wearing the Hanbok around the palace grounds, one can't help but imagine what life would have been like for those living in the Joseon era. For example, I went during a hot, summer day and trying to walk around the palace in na Hanbok made me question how people in the past were able to live without the option of taking off all the Hanbok layers and stepping into an air-conditioned café shop across the block.

In Michael Hurt's article "Clothing, Social Empathy and the Power of Stepping Into Someone Else's Shoes", he explains how his project attempts to makes connections between people's experiences stepping into someone else's shoes and how that can be a way for people to feel more empathy for others. Hurt emphasizes that "kinesthetic empathy" is the "embodied desire to become the other", but also mentions how Korean fashion is in right now. This interested me in particular because I had done the exact thing on my trip, but despite my excitement to wear the Hanbok, I didn't feel the same excitement to try the traditional Philippine dress when I flew to the Philippines after my Korea trip. Although tourism may encourage tourists to try traditional clothing in order to experience feeling truly "authentic", the social landscape of today's world with social media has heightened the "coolness" factor of wearing certain cultural forms of clothing, which I think shares a connection to old, orientalist values which views traditional Asian clothing as "exotic" and "cool", devaluing its original meanings and cultural significance.

Questions: What are the boundaries in wearing a country's traditional dress if the act of doing so is widely encouraged by the local people, national government, and commercially packaged tourism?