Do (Not) Judge Book From Its Cover

During golden week my hosuto fam went to Tohoku for Holiday. They intend to drag me along, but honestly i was too tired of traveling due to the latest Kansai trip as well as the crazy workload that I must finish. I stayed at a friend's apato around Chiba. She was an ASEAN Scholar in Singapore, and went to Japan with Monbusho scholarship. On the late night casual chit chat, she mentioned about how Singaporeans dress up is way too casual. They won't spend much effort on outer appearance as they are already contented (and confident?) of what they are.

While, again, hasty generalization sometimes misleads, I second this. I think of Singapore as the land of meritocracy. As long as you have what it takes, images won't be that important anymore. If you are smart, people wouldn't dare to badmouth you. People respect you because you do have something intangible to be proud of. I might be wrong, but this is what i perceive. And this is what i praise from Singapore. When I was in Singapore, I always wear bermuda, school's T-Shirt and not to mention slippers everywhere. This habit starts during my Undergraduate studies, whereby a technological university is (in)famous of having the most number of students dress up too casually as they dont really care. Despite being a business student -who supposedly dress up glamorously-, other students often perceive me being Engineering student xD (so i look that smart huh? LOL). But some problems persist when I went back to Indonesia. I still dressed up that way -as its damn comfy and i cant deny-, even when I went to saloon, shopping malls, and hospitals xD.

Gembel! Rasanya pol banget xD

One time during my break, I had fallen ill and went to a nearby hospital. As a courtesy to the patients, Doctor sometimes involved in a casual conversation. In my case, it went up like this:

Doctor: Are you a high school student? College student?
Me: Nay. I am working now.
Doctor: (disbelief) oh... where do you work?
Me: err... Singapore.
Doctor: Maid? Domestic Helper?
Me: ..... (speechless) er no, I am an Analyst
Doctor: huh?
Me: (grin)
Doctor: (still in disbelief) but you work in Singapore, so I assume you must be a domestic helper!
Me: =___=

Same thing happened when I cut my hair at the saloon. And I was once being perceived as a maid too, when I arrive at the airport.Bah, whats wrong with people? Or is it whats wrong with me? Whats wrong with all the ugly bermudas and casual school's T-Shirts? Well, i cant deny being a slave/maid/helper, as a matter of fact, i do help my boss working on projects right? ;___; Still, I do hope that people stop underestimate others just by looking at their outer appearance -this is one of Indonesian's pittfalls, they care MUCH about images. They are far from being a civil society (hasty generalization rules! xD). No matter how lowlife I am, If i dress in Armani suites, people will gasp when glancing at me! No matter how much god-forsaken debt i have, if wear lavish jewellry and go to country club often, people will respect me. So its easy to buy respect afterall? xD

Tokyo! Mantan Yakuza

But now that I am in Tokyo, my fashion sense do improve radically. I feel like there's an obligation to dress up, even though I dont know why (peer pressure?), especially during blooming spring, when the atmosphere turns out very sweet and pretty with sakuras everywhere. I suppose it's because people here dress up very well, so it does have a positive impact on my side.

Nonetheless, the weather is getting warmer pretty recently. During summer, I think my old habit would come to emerge naturally, with super casual dress such as slippers, school's T-shirts, and bermudas xD. O' Summertime, please come soon, I really miss my slippers!