Even Mannequins Look Different

Translated by Ian Haight and Hwajin Kang (original: http://blog.naver.com/mahabira6061/70135053889)

I am downtown Vancouver now.  The population is so diverse. It is about 30% White, almost 50% Asian, 10% Indian, and 10% others.  Clothing varies greatly too. Some people wear parka jackets while some wear short-sleeve t-shirts. Fashion styles, languages… everything is dissimilar, including even body shapes. Tall people, short people, large people, thin people, tall and thin people, long and large people, short and thin people, short and obese people, a person whose head is smaller than mine but has hips larger than my upper body, a person whose body is extremely out of proportion. I always believed that paintings of Columbian artist Fernando Botero were unrealistic. People in his paintings are at least charming-looking, but in reality some people are far out of shape. How could these works of art—the people and the paintings—be created without god?  I thought about it.  The reason this world is composed of all these changes and differences is “harmony.” True harmony is generated when everyone accepts others’ differences and thoughts, and when an individual does not force others to agree with his or her thoughts. We are free—unrestrained as long as we give no harms to one another. I witnessed an aged-man in casual clothes on the street. He was listening to music with headphones and getting into the rhythms. His body may have been 60 years old, but his soul must be young. 

I could see this idea about harmony, difference, and change at the stores here too.  Even so, everything is just big. There are so many products; the people are big; and even mannequins are big too (not the size of the bodies but the breasts). They mannequins here are more glamorous than those in Korea.