This past month has been riddled with little slices of hell, much of which was related to our housing situation. To summarize, what was supposed to be a six-month deal was cut short. This past several weeks, we were suddenly faced with a deadline to move out before April 1st. The boyfriend was out of town for a week and that gave us even less time to look for a rental on such short notice.
After much stressful scrambling to find a new home, we finally signed a lease on Tuesday. It was fortunate we’d found this place. We were so desperate that we were on the verge of applying for a studio, two houses down from our current house. The studio is girgeous, new and eco-consciously built but lacks soundproofing. They are also in the process of building a brewpub in the same building, adjacent to the studio. I shudder at the thought of the noise we would have had to endure, and the lack of privacy from wandering bar patrons. In contrast, our new home is tucked away in a quiet neighborhood.
Moving Day is on the 27th and I’m already eager to leave right away. Too much has kept me away from all the projects I’d hoped to complete weeks ago. I’m looking forward to getting back on track with the writing and illustrating.
We’ll still be in Portland, but in a different neighborhood. You will see lots of photos from SE Hawthorne and SE Belmont, as our new home will be nestled in between the two bustling shop-filled streets. I hope the Mean Racist Troll Kid doesn’t follow me all the way there with his stupid trampoline.
I am Alienman. This is my blog. I have sensitive acne-prone combination dry skin with an oily T-zone. Yea, my skin sucks. I have bulgy fatty monolids (aka single eyelids). I hate expensive over-hyped products that don't work. My female readers apparently dig my bewbs.
Do they ever say nice things in Korea anymore?
By alienman on March 8, 2010
I think it’s been over five years since my last visit in Korea. Around that time, just about every other young lady I met had either undergone cosmetic surgery or was saving up for a procedure. For a while, my mother was also planning on putting me under the knife to get my receding chin “fixed”. Her reasoning was that it would simply be putting my chin back where “it was supposed to be” before I “ruined it” with my nasty habit of resting my chin on my hands. Thankfully, that whole phase passed and she has agreed that I look perfectly fine without having to be cut apart against my wishes.
My mother wasn’t unique in her desires to have her daughter surgically “corrected”. This has become a growing trend in South Korea and maybe in many parts of Asia. Being a Korean woman seems to be a lifelong beauty pageant. A woman’s merit is heavily based on her looks and this also extends into the job industry, where applicants are required to submit photos with their resumes. People weren’t the most tactful about keeping comments to themselves, either. I recall my orthodontist commenting on the condition of my skin, which was reacting horribly to the change in environment. Here in the US, we’re taught to keep such thoughts to ourselves, so it was a bit of a surprise for me.
However, for the most part, I didn’t feel like Korean society was all that harsh in judging the looks of young women. I mean, sure, I thought that standards were a bit rigid and high, but it wasn’t as if anyone other than my mom was telling me I should get work done or I should lose weight. For the most part, I felt accepted and plenty of people seemed to find me attractive in spite of my small monolidded eyes and chunky brassy braces.
That was about five years ago. Now, I’m scared to go back because I’m hearing more and more horror stories about how much worse the superficiality and scrutinies have become. A beautiful and slender woman was miserable during her stay in Korea because her own doctor was criticizing her for being fat and ugly. A slim, modelesque young woman I know has recently returned from a brief trip and she came bearing stories of how everyone she met called her fat. The women I see on Korean television shows are freakishly thin that even their thighs are bowed.
After years of being exposed to such superficial-ism, after years of seeing sickly pale-faced skinny girls with surgically cut doe-eyes, my mother must have been sorely disappointed to come to the US and see me at my 127 lbs, windshield tan and itty-bitty eyes. Considering all this, I can’t quite blame her for initially thinking my physical state was problematic and that it was urgent to get me back on the race to be pretty with all those other girls.
Now I weigh around 140 and, being a stone’s throw away from turning 30, my metabolism has definitely slowed. It’s gotten to be more of a struggle to lose weight and I’m not all that frantic about it, either. It is only when I think I have to be in Korea soon, that I feel the pressure to lose the weight. I also wonder, even if I were to reach my desired goal weight of 125, would I still be overweight by Korean societal standards because I wouldn’t look like a starved child from a developing country?
I do hope that I’m being paranoid. Maybe some of my readers could share their stories. Have you been in Korea or anywhere else in Asia recently? What was your impression of the general standards of beauty there?
Posted in Daughter of Asia | Tagged asia, beauty, korea, social commentary, standard | 33 Responses