[Nyororin]

I`ve been busy the past few days so am a bit late to the discussion about "fitting in" - but I will add my feelings on it anyway.

I am pretty sure I know exactly what Chiuchimu is talking about. I don`t really agree with the way it has been said, but I pretty much agree with it.

In general, when people from Japan (or other countries) move to the US - either long term or for school, etc - they almost always switch over to a more "American" style of clothing and general fashion. They may not do it consciously, and it may happen over a series of stages... But it pretty much always happens.
Changing your wardrobe to fit in sort of implies a direct action on someone`s part to turn into someone else overnight - but it`s far more subtle in reality. Things like the cut of clothes, the fabric choices, combinations, etc. The same outfit can be worn in a more "American" style. This is something you can see in things like business suits. A suit is a suit, but Japanese suits and American suits seem different due to small details in their cut and how they`re designed to be worn. Someone we know spent a few years working in the US and recently came back to Japan. Their suits are run of the mill basic things, but they seem "different" - if only because they`ve been designed to be worn differently.

Anyway, it seems that people moving to the US shift over pretty quickly to a more "American" style of wearing their clothes. It may or may not be conscious on their part, but I do think it`s pretty true.
On the other hand, when people move to Japan it doesn`t seem like they shift their fashion at all. A classic example is the baggy t-shirt and shorts in April. Virtually no one Japanese wears anything like that in April, but you`ll see tons of foreigners doing it year after year. The same with tank tops, etc. It really does stand out. Yes, Japanese wear t-shirts. Yes they wear tank tops. But they don`t wear ones like that, and they don`t wear them in the same way... And when they buy clothes in Japan, it seems that they tend to look for ones that they can wear in the same way as they did before coming to Japan.

I think a good way to think of it is people wearing "tourist" clothes... forever.

It`s easy to say "I am not going to change who I am because I`m in Japan!" - but that`s not what it`s about. Whether you realized it or not, you did not just come up with your fashion style and sense of what looks decent (vs. old fashioned, out of style, messy, etc) all on your own. You were influenced by media and the people around you... But when foreigners (westeners in particular) come to Japan, they often seem to avoid the local media so are rarely influenced by it... And just stick with what is "in" back where they`re from.

It`s a bit of a fascinating phenomenon, really. I am wondering whether a lot of it has to do with the usual stronger desire to learn English while in the US than the desire to learn Japanese while in Japan. This will bring a difference in media exposure.