Uniforms

You'd kind of have to be living in a hole to not know that full-on uniforms are standard in Japanese middle and high schools. Anime and exported Japanese pop culture do pretty decent jobs of making sure that's one of the few images of Japan that foreigners hold. Still, though, you wonder... pleated skirts? Gakuran (those button-up, pajama-looking, old-military-style outfits the boys wear)? Sailor uniforms??? For reals?

Yeah, for reals. Sailor uniforms for the girls and gakuran for the boys are just as common as the more modern blazer-and-tie that my school sports. The American standard for school uniforms of "certain-colored polo shirt and certain-colored pants" is not a thing at all, and only certain special schools don't require uniforms.

I'd often wonder why such impractical uniforms were so standard. I mean, why sailors? Do they just want their girls to look all cute and stuff?

Uniforms are such an integrated tradition and part of the culture here that they're not given much thought. They're not strange or a nuisance because they're a part of life. When I was being fitted for my uniform, my host mother and sister were getting slightly exasperated with me and were confused when I wasn't sure how everything should fit and what was standard. When I saw the exasperation on their faces creeping into frustration, I explained to them that it was my first uniform and I didn't really know what was normal. They, and the lady working at the store, were amazed to hear that.

With as much American pop culture as Sakura consumes, I was surprised she didn't know that American schools don't have uniforms. But the uniform is so integrated into her idea of school that it didn't occur to her that it wasn't for me.

Being well-dressed and well-groomed is also the expectation in Japanese society. It's standard for everyone here to dress well, and the school uniform just fits into that mindset perfectly. Rather than just having a plain polo-and-pants approach to the school uniform that serves the same purpose practically, uniforms are carefully designed, each school having different patterns for skirts and pants, distinguishing adornments on jackets or blazers, distinctive bows or ties or scarves... They try to make the uniforms not only professional, but also fashionable and appealing. Schools want their students to be dressed well.

(With that, though, you'd think that they'd invest a little more in getting the uniforms to fit correctly. I mean, if you're going to wear the same thing every day all year for three years, you should want it to fit nearly perfectly. With only basic sizing and the only adjustments being to hem pants/skirts, there are a lot of students left with obviously ill-fitting clothes...)

Because I'm a lot taller than most of the girls here, everything that fit me halfway decently girth-wise was way too short. (Though my host sister is also really small, so her uniform fits rather big on her, and I feel like she and my host mother were trying to get my uniform to fit on me like hers fits on her...) So I'm left with a blazer with overly wide shoulders and all around-oversized shirts because of the attempt to get my sleeves to be long enough (the shirt sleeves are still too short). My skirt had to be let down to be made longer, too, and my socks aren't quite tall enough...

...So, while feeling awkward because I'm that lone white girl in a sea of Japanese kids, I also feel awkward because my clothes don't fit. But I'm not alone in that aspect.

without the blazer, and I've since gotten the more-popular knit vest

An important part of the uniform are the indoor shoes worn at school. My school doesn't use uwabaki, which are more slipper-like than shoes, but basic white sneakers that are still obviously designed for that purpose. Students enter our school through a side entrance, where there's the genkan (entryway) with shoe lockers for each student. We take off our outdoor shoes, put them in the locker, and slip on our school shoes there.

The color of accents on the shoe distinguish what grade the student is. Right now at my school first-years have black Mizunos, second-years have blue no-brands, and third years have green Mizunos. The school gave me, however, a pair of those no-brands... but with yellow on them. I'm the only student in the school with them, so I stand out even more and nobody knows what grade I'm in (and thus how to address me).

Getting to wear the school uniform and be a for-real Japanese student is one of the things most exchange students to Japan get really excited about. I was excited, too, and it's definitely one of the things about which I still have to tell myself, "You know, this is pretty cool." While I'm not glad that I had to buy mine rather than borrow from the school because the price of it was absurd, I am glad because I'll be able to take it with me and keep it.

At the same time, though, it gets to a point where you really just want to wear pants.