Ryan was considered a "free-spirited boy", a slang referring to a person who could careless about the rules and eyes of others, in Korean high school. After a year, he transferred to a private high school in the states.
He liked to dress up in so-called dandy style - bright color checkered shirts, layering with preppy cardigans or a fashionable sweat shirt on top and khakis on the bottom. Recalling his past visits to America, he decided he better "tone down", so he packed several "plain man-to-man shirts (man-t0-man shirt referring to a sweat shirt material round necks)" and less colorful shirts.
When he dressed up in his toned-down look in his high school, many people came up to Ryan to ask where he had gotten his clothes. At first, many came up to him because they were impressed by his clothes or were simply intrigued by unusual style. However, as months past by, Ryan became tired of the question. Moreover, there were kids who would ask him again and again, just to make fun of the fact that all of his clothes were from Korea. Ryan said "I felt that people were identifying me simply as a Korean boy, not Ryan". His conspicuous Korean clothes that drew others attention made people to signify him merely as, or over-simplified his identity as a boy from Korea. In other words, wearing clothes from Korea that he thought of as fashionable was like wearing a name tag called "Made in Korea" all over him.
But it was not just the fact that people remembered him as "a Korean boy" that made Ryan upset enough to abandon his style. As his clothes represented Korean, and he came to represent Korea in his school, the students came to further identify what he wears, eats or prefers as a "Korean thing" too. Since he dressed up in a dandy style, a style that many of students would identify as what gay guys would like to wear, students started to generalize that Korean guys dressed like gays.
Although Ryan is not against homosexuality, he did not like how he was making people think that Korean guys are like gay guys. With this factor on the table, he finally went to Hollister and Abercrombie and bought many colorful t-shirts and sport shorts. He paid special attention not to buy blacks or greys ; he also refrained from buying t-shirts with anime and especially the black/grey shirts with manga characters on. These factors each would represent "emo", "manga-nerd" and "emo+ manga-nerd Asian". Colorful shirts from Abercrombie or Hollister would represent him as a typical American kid. After dressing up in his sky blue Hollister shirt, he said, "I guess I felt more comfortable around other guys when I changed my style. At least I don't have to deal with those stupid questions anymore, you know? I also became less self-conscious."
I asked him, "But would you wear those Hollister and Abercrombie shirts in Korea?"
He answered "Hmm.,.. I guess I did when I came back to Korean during summer vacation while I was still attending American highschool. At the time, many of my friends in Korea were also in my shoes so we wore the same thing anyway. But if I dressed up in those shirts again I would feel like I'm in a elementary school."
In Georgia Tech university, he feels more comfortable in his old Korean style clothes. He assumes it is because he is now comfortable who he is, and what his tastes are. Besides, there are many Korean guys in the university, so he can careless about what other people think as long as his group of friends think of him as fashionable.
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