Conformity and Non-Conformity

The Japanese conform. Very few of them do anything out of the ordinary (at least to there way of looking at it). This includes the way they dress during the week. Everyone here wears a uniform. School children all wear uniforms (the girls dress up in naughty Catholic school girl uniforms, and the boys dress up like they are in Prussian military schools), the road crews all wear uniforms (or rather, wear several different uniforms, all color coded to depict their function), even office workers all wear uniforms, in the form of almost identical suits. The Japanese seem to love to wear uniforms.

But I think this causes a problem. None of them get to express much individuality most of the time. However, on the weekend, some of them have found a way to express themselves. A few people, especially younger women (teens and early twenties) dress up in outrageous costumes and hang out in public areas to be seen. However, even in this small amount of non-conformity, they manage to conform, because they all dress basically alike. There are some variations, but in any given location, all these people are dressed in the same style, and usually have come with at least one other person who is dressed almost identically. So, even on the weekend, in their attempts to express themselves, that have managed to just change one uniform for another.

I think we should feel lucky that communism did not get a foothold here in Japan, because I think they really could have made it work.