March 5, 2011

• Beauty is a part of my repetoire

  

  I've always been proud of my white skin and my relatively straight nose (Asian noses are usually flat). I never noticed until now that what I valued most about my features were also those which were the most Caucasian-looking.

  Ideology is invisible, but I never knew that as a child. All my life, my Asian friends and aunties have praised me for my light skin colour, and I never thought to question why. I became vain from the continual reinforcement. I was very proud of my white skin - and yet I still never thought of myself as beautiful.

  Because in the process of fragmentizing beauty into supposedly separate components, we externalize it. Beauty is White Skin, Big Eyes, a Straight Nose. Beauty is an attainment, it's a thing on your face. Beauty has too many parts for you to ever collect 'em all. This is how it's always talked about; the problem was not simply a lack of confidence on my account. 

   

  Now I know my skin isn't nice because it's whiter than someone else's. Beauty should not be a relative measurement. My small eyes, the flat plains of my face - they're beautiful because they're mine.

  • 3:52 am
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