TheKilt

　　Whenever people from Scotland live in foreign countries, they arealways asked:“Is Scotland that place where men wear skirts?” The short answeris yes, but there is more about the myths of Scottish “skirts”.

　　The “skirt” that Scotsmen (苏格兰男子) sometimeswear is called a kilt. It is part of the traditional dress of Scotland. Thekilt is clearly very famous across the world. It seems that everybody has heardof it, and that most people have seen a picture of a man wearing one.

　　People’s knowledge and ideas about Scotsmen wearing these funnykilts come from films and television. Every time people from other countriesask about the kilt,they mention Mel Gibson’s film,Braveheart. In manycountries, there are television programmes about Scotland. These programmesalways include information or images of men in kilts.

　　Of course, in Scotland, you will often see the kilt. The reality is,though, that you will most commonly see it in tourist areas. The main streetsand tourist areas of Scotland always have a Scotsman wearing a kilt and alltourist shops in the country sell kilts in different colours.

　　But kilts are not something that Scottish people see every day.Kilts are for special occasions, such as weddings, funerals and other big andimportant events.Scotsmen do not put on their kilt just to buy a bottle of milkand a loaf of bread at the local supermarket.

　　The reason for this may be that kilts are very expensive. When a manwears a kilt, he normally wears it with a special shirt, jacket, socks andshoes. This is obviously not cheap. In fact, an average kilt outfit (全套服装) costs around ￡500.