What Part's the Most Embarrassing?

When the National Ballet of Senegal demonstrated some of their topless dances at a press conference before their recent performance in Taipei, their Chinese promoter invited the reporters up on stage for a group picture. But the girls suddenly disappeared. When they came back, they were wearing colorful full-length gowns and beaming happily--because in Africa going topless is commonplace, but a chance to wear fancy clothes is special.

Covering up the naked body is said to have begun when Adam and Eve sewed on fig leaves.

But as of the present there are still no absolute standards on what parts of the body "may" and "may not" be exposed. Different cultures have different values.

The Japanese, for example, with their cultural background in Shintoism, look on nudity differently than the Confucian Chinese do.

Naked Japanese men and women bathe together in public baths without a blush, since in Shintoism nudity is an expression of the holiness of Nature. And Japan's earliest book of history, the Kojiki, describes sexual relations and the female body frankly.

Of course most of the time Japanese women are kept tightly wrapped up in their kimonos. Only geishas are willing to reveal a small, seductive part of the neck.

In China, on the other hand, where relations between the sexes were mystified into the theory of the yin and the yang, speech and behavior have been steeped in taboo.

On Taiwan during the Japanese Occupation, after her arm was accidentally touched by a Japanese doctor giving her a shot, a well-bred young Chinese lady was said to have gone home and hanged herself in shame.

If her spirit could see young ladies in the West today with their bare backs and low-cut necklines slow dancing with young gentlemen, what might it think!

In the West, where the breasts are considered the most romantic part of the body, a European woman wears a low-cut neckline on an evening dress to express warmth and vitality, almost as a form of etiquette. But the West has its "no-no's" too. European women in the 16th century, it's said, could expose the cleavage of their breasts but had to keep their legs safely covered.

For Africans, going without clothes is natural not because they're culturally back ward, but simply because the weather's so hot.

That Islamic women are required to wear a veil in public is well known. But among the Tuaregs, also Islamic, who live in Algeria and Mali, it's the men, not the women, who must cover their faces, indoors as well as out. They keep their mouths covered even when they eat. That's because they believe that the mouth is the channel for a magic power which can harm themselves and their fellow tribesmen if it escapes.

Besides that, their face wrappings are a kind of status symbol; slaves aren't allowed to wear them. Ethnologists say that the custom is characteristic of a matriarchal society.

Although there are no absolute standards on what can or can't exposed, almost all peoples consider the reproductive organs important and deserving of protection.

In New Guinea, for instance, the aborigines scrape out gourds of various shapes, dry them, and wear them with ropes tied around their waists as excellent protective "cups."

Of course there are still exceptions. The South American Ona go completely naked, except for one thing: they keep their noses covered. That's because they think that the nose, in the center of the face, is the most important part of the body.

The Botocudo people of the Amazon region also go bare, except for large ear and lip ornaments, called botoques. These ornaments are considered extremely important; without them they feel as ashamed as we do when we're naked.

Finally, although many Chinese don't know it, the old Chinese custom of binding the feet of well-bred women and the taboo on exposing them, an inhumane practice that arose during the Sung dynasty (960- 1279), gave rise to a popular Chinese expression.

The first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and his wife, the empress Ma (a common Chinese surname meaning "horse"), were originally poor peasants. As a result, the empress's feet had not been bound when she was a child. She was ashamed of this and always kept them carefully hidden. But one day when she was riding in her sedan chair, a gust of wind blew open the curtain door, exposing her naturally sized feet.

The common Chinese expression "to reveal a horse's hoof," (meaning to give oneself away) was thus originally "to reveal Ma's feet" (which sounds exactly the same), referring to the big feet of the empress Ma.

Which part of the body is the most embarrassing? It turns out they all are!

(Material provided by: Chen Ch'i-lu, Lin Heng-tao, Jan Ch'ang-jui, David S. Blundell.)

[Picture Caption]

Arabic women must wear a veil outdoors, revealing only their eyes. (photo by Yang Y'ung-shan)

The wooden disks in the earlobes and lips are botoques. (photo courtesy of Wu Hsuan-san)

The wooden disks in the earlobes and lips are botoques. （photo courtesy of Wu Hsuan-san）