Yet they become nomadic shepherds the moment they shrug on a del, or nomad's cloak, with cuffs that hang down below their fingertips. When they add headgear from abroad - a bowler hat or a leather cap, it only adds to the alien appearance. Yet every city is filled with teens whose rebellion has led them full-circle, to a style that is at heart Japanese. After Japan, South Korea is the most westernised of Asian countries. Yet its apparel is full of quirks.
Kids stroll the streets wearing oversized shoes with toes that curl up, like the boots of an elf.
Even the response to the cold varies in geographically proximate nations. Yet in early March, when Vladivostok residents are still wearing fur hats and heavy leather jackets, most Harbiners scurry down the streets hatless and in cloth coats. If they do don fur or astrakhan hats, they keep the earflaps straight out, like aircraft wings, in a fashion that for some reason only vagrants and ice fishermen wear in Russia. For youths compelled to endure such indignities, there is surprisingly little embarrassment. It is just a minor setback in the war against stylistically repressed adults.