Figure 1.--.
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Figure 1.--. |
A Japanese HBC reader reports that one boy's first day of school was carried as a feature on Japnese television in 2002. He provided some details on the program.
The short pants suit as "expected" formal wear for boys does survive in Japan. I saw evidence of this on a television program. The program covers "international" marriages -- one Japanese to one foreigner. The other week featured a Japanese man who had married a woman from Kenya. She had moved back to Japan with him to live in his home town, a small town on the northern island of Hokkaido which has Japan's coldest climate. This permitted the television announcer to go on at length on the contrast between the tropical climate of Kenya and the Minnesota-type climate of
Hokkaido.
One vignette in the show featured the school entrance ceremony (a big deal in Japan) for the couple's six year old younger son enterting first grade. They dressed the boy in a nice looking checked light blue suit complete with neck tie, cuffed short pants that ended a bit above the knees, and navy knee socks. The program took us to the ceremony itself. The area where the family lives has lost so many people that the school has only a handfull of students left. Only one other boy entered first grade this year; he was wearing a navy blue suit with mid-thigh length short pants and white knee socks.
School entrance ceremonies are held the first week of April. It was
snowing! Nonetheless both boys for an important ceremony were decked out in short pants suits despite the weather.. I believe this indicates that the short pants suit continues to be thought of as appropriate dress-up wear for boys. (Occasions in which dress clothes are required are, however, few in number -- limited mostly to school entrance ceremonies, graduations, weddings, and funerals.)
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