The Meaning of Beauty

Some people like this but it was just taken at a good angel, making my face smaller than it is in real life.


Now, why can't this be called beauty? It's still me, but upside down at a different angle. And this time it's the real me 0_o"



Last year my preacher's wife invited me over to her house for dinner after not seeing me for many years (I went to that church for a while in middle school but went back to the U.S. after graduation). I remember how I tried very hard to hold in my breath so my stomach would look smaller. I gained quite a lot of weight during high school but did not grow on inch. The first thing she told me when she saw me was, "My, you've gotten prettier!" I answered her what almost every Chinese would answer, "No,no, really I'm not."
"Nonsense!" she said, "When people call you pretty, you say thank you. Don't disagree."

I haven't been very comfortable in my own skin for nearly a decade now. Back in first grade I fell asleep one day chewing gum and the next day my mother found the gum stuck in my hair. The barber most have thought it reasonable to give me a boy hair cut when he saw the power ranger figure in my hands. Since that day on no girls would hang out with me in school anymore. All my friends were boys and I didn't mind. I'd spend every recess wrestling with boys or picking on girls. When I went back to the U.S. I was still very boyish and I rather talk with the boys about Mortal Combat then waste time with the girls. And I hated pink. The first time I started caring about what my face looked like was when I got picked on in seventh grade in Taiwan. I was made fun of for my grades, weight and looks (I was still boyish at that time). I worked hard to bring up my grades and lost a few pounds and was no longer picked on in eighth grade anymore but I kept trying to changing to change my face. I started plugging my eyebrows (which, naturally is like Rock Lee's) at age 12 and used makeup to look like a panda at age 13. I also grew bangs, hoping my face would look smaller.

Freshman year of high school, I was back in the U.S. again and woke up every morning at 4:50 to decorate my face. I stopped wearing heavy makeup in sophomore year because I got lazy and people accepted me that way. Now I'm back in Taiwan again. Despite having the same skin tone and same dark hair with the people here, I don't look the same. My eyes are naturally bigger than a lot of Chinese but unfortunately, so is my face. Why is having a big face such a TABOO in Taiwan? OR in Asia as a whole? There was a street dubbed "Plastic Surgery Street" when I visited Korea (and tempted me for the whole duration of the trip). A Korean American woman I met there even advised me get a new nose and shave off some of my facial bones. My mother jokes that I should marry a blind man. What ever happened to beauty not being skin deep? Back in the Tang Dynasty women tried to fatten themselves to look pretty and now girls are starving themselves. What is wrong with this society? Sometimes I feel bad and really want to fit in, but other times I feel silly trying to change how others feel about me! :p

I guess I'm still happier walking in "hand me downs" from my 180cm little brother and piling my hair up in a bun. It saves more time for ZZZs!