Conformity Vs Individualism

What I realised after 2 years of staying oversea is that the cultures between two big nations are relatively huge; Asian and Westerners. Over here in Aus, there were high amount of people practicing Individualism, while in Asian countries, there were high conformity going on.

For those of you who has no idea what is Conformity and Individualism, better improve your psychological dictionary.

Conformity means tendency to change one's perceptions, opinions, or behaviours to conform with group norms. Too many scientific jargons? Basically it is about one following the social trends and community trends. Individualism is the opposite of that.

Okay, why I say that? That Westerner has more individualism, while Asian just follow the leads. Some of you who are pro-Asian might started to protest upon looking at that sentences. AND I am going to prove my theory right.

Let's talk about Asian alone. Looking back at the time of LaLa-Land. There were heaps of LaLa (people with totally no sense of dressing, thinking what they dress were hip when they showed a total loser out of them) all of the sudden in a few years back. Almost all, if not all, of them have bell bottom jeans, collar shirts which were opened widely which can showed their skinny chest. Shirts that are mostly colourful, maybe from their father's time.
Then there were the straightening-hair-period. When almost every girl I know, have had their hair straightened.
This is not the bad stuffs. The thing that make conformity so strong in Asia is people will actually look at you differently when someone wear differently from the norm. This is why conformity is kept very strong in Asia, cause everyone want to look like another person he/she is staying with. They will scrutinizing you until you felt like you weren't wearing anything at all.

Then, there will always be the Westerner. Of course, there were people who conform to others. Following fashion trends, and wearing something people will preferably wear. BUT, there were also high individualism in this region. If you were to wear something funny in the street of Melbourne, not many people will pay attention, or even scrutinizing you. For example, when a guy wear Harry Potter costume, or even super-duper short pants, no one will care.

You guys might think I am a hypocrite. Writing all these, while I myself follow trends so desperately. Yes, although I follow trends, there are time which I just wanna wear my normal home clothes out. And I did.

Of course, I am not talking about dressing up in your G-strings and thongs (Thong and thongs, what a great pun!). This picture was shown in my Psychology lectures. The first time I saw that, I almost burst out laughing.... hehehe