The apparel and manner, which serve as the external embodiment of the members of a society, is directly exposed to the outside world. These figures and gestures provide us a convenient way to learn the trend of ideology and valuas about a society. A further study, however, still needs an internal and deep explore, for the process of internationalization has overshadowed the initial picture of many cultures.
The attitudes and notions of a society can be sometimes easily understood through studying apparal of its members since appearence is the most obvious visual and external feature of an individual. An individual, anyway, yearns somewhat for others' attention and understanding. They will deliberately, if not unconsciously, leak some clues for other to explore their internal emotions. A person who is fond of business suits will be regarded as a man of sobriety and gravity, one who would like relaxing and causual wears, however, of activity and vigor. In Sillicon Valley, which has witnessed the foundation of several worldwide famous computer technological companies, the titans of these companies like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, seem to be interested in T-shirts and Jeans suits, perhaps because these garment impress the public with a fashion and active figure. This example, shows a business attitude towards the field of high technology in America, that is, to keep a clear, energic and passional mind and to pursue a brave, positive and ambitious living style.
Not only the appearence of a society, but also the manner can reveal basic values and ideas of this society. Society means unification to some extent in terms of the environment. Its populace, educated with the roughly similar approaches, instilled with the approximately same religion beliefs, restrained by a uniform moral system and political codes and regulations, would behave more or less coherently. In the feodal society of ancient China, polite manners and behaviors were considered vital in communication, since they represented the symbol of one's social status. From the obversation of the regular politeness exercised by the lower classes to the upper, we can understand the rigid hierarchy of that time. Even today, when two Englishmen meet with each other, they tend to give a hug, an action of love or friendship. It is just because of the enternality of the manner, that provides us an indicator and dictionary of social rituals or peoples' daily routines.
However, when it comes to modern sociey, this issue seems to be not that clear. The internationalization puts every country into a superior "society" and in which, there exists few laws or regulations to restrain the cultural communication and even, assimilation. Thus, the different culture from various countries begin to mingle, which overshadows and even to some extend overthows the original form of culture of each country.In Chinatown of New York, plenty of Americans as well as other foreigners wear Chinese garments;meanwhile the uniform of capitalists has conquered more of the globe than capitalists itself. The international conference chooses business suits as its official garment, which originates from England. At the same time, the manner of hug mentioned above, has already prevailed over this world. You can hardly infer what a person or what their culture is through just studying what he wears or behaves. Maybe the answer could only lies in the remained historical records and relics.In this case, a further study direct into the internal constitution of a sociey seems to be indespensible to achieve more about its values or ideas.
Admittedly, individual manner and appearence provides us a straightfoward method to reveal one's social and cutural environment. But meanwhile it is also a signal of deprivation of our cultural legacy. Perhaps today, only through a deep study can we have a comprehensive perception about a sociey.