Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Only Skin Deep
By Lady Ochel Espinosa
HER feet were small and broken not because of an accident. This was how Lila Chiu explained to her grandchildren.
A native of Fujian, China, Lila Chiu was one of the countless girls who had their feet broken, literally folded, and bound by their very own mothers at a tender age of three to prevent the feet from growing. The life-long pain and infections are only some of the effects these women had to endure from the procedure.
From 960 BC to 1911, in Mainland China, foot binding was performed widely, following the belief that the smaller the feet a woman has, the more beautiful she is. The belief was so widespread that women without the lily feet, ideally three inches in length, were considered ugly and a disgrace to the family and were thus not chosen by men for marriage.
Vanity Fair
Imagine having lily feet in today's age and time. Aside from the pain, one could only have so vivid a picture of the stares one would garner from the shallow people of today.
So what is beautiful in the digital era? Beauty is defined as "any of those attributes of form, sound, color, execution, character, behavior, etc., which give pleasure and gratification to the mind."
But just what exactly gives pleasure and gratification to the senses and the mind of people in the 21st Century?
Poles Apart
Different cultures actually have different ideas of beauty. What may be beautiful to the Americans therefore, may not be the beauty standard of the Chinese. The lily feet, for instance, was beautiful to the Mainland Chinese for as long as a thousand years, but it never made it to People's list of most beautiful feet today nor a century ago for that matter.
One thing, however, remains true: beauty is highly valued by all cultures, different as their standards may be.
Though there are many conflicting ideas of beauty even within each culture, there are unofficial definitions of beauty discreetly imposed by the many advertisements on television and print that have earned the silent nod and two-thumbs-up of the majority.
Deep Within
A recent study conducted by the personal care brand, Dove, surveyed 2,000 women from ten countries across Asia including the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and Vietnam. The study, called The Real Truth About Asian Beauty - Asian Women's Attitudes Toward Beauty, Self-Esteem, Body Image and Media Portrayal, discovered that only 3% of Asian women consider themselves beautiful. Most of the women surveyed rather classified themselves as "average" or "normal."
One of these guidelines is the age-old belief unique to Asians that dictates women with light complexion are beautiful. This is because of the fact that light complexion means having enough resources to stay under shade all day long and not having to work out in the fields under the burning heat of the midday sun.
Today, gigantic billboards and repetitive TV commercials featuring the likes of Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, and Kristine Hermosa endorsing all kinds of whitening products prove how this belief has survived the years and remained prevalent among Asians, specifically the vain Filipina (and metrosexual Filipino).
Light complexion, after all, does not only suggest beauty, it speaks of economic status as well; remaining indoors all the time would mean someone else doing the "dirty" job for them.
Raising the Stakes
Aside from white skin, however, many other characteristics are considered beautiful for Asians. They include large, deep eyes, youthfulness, height, and a veil of flowing shiny hair.
Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean women generally have extremely small, slit-like eyes, making large, deep eyes a rarity-and a wonder-in the regions.
Though the various Asian cultures have different ideas of youthfulness, they all agree that a woman is at the summit of her beauty at an age no greater than 30. Seventy percent of the Chinese women surveyed say that they are most beautiful before they reach thirty. Filipinos, on the other hand, are considered most merciless, as they believe that a woman is most beautiful at her 20's.
But just who sets these standards, influencing women of all ages to spend thousands for cosmetic surgery? Seventy percent of the surveyed Asian women, as it turns out, "rely on others' definition to determine beauty." Vietnamese women rely largely on their husbands and partners for this definition. Filipinas, on the other hand, have their families decide what is beautiful for them first, followed by their husbands.
Easy Way Out
Many women who feel inadequate turn to various exercise routines, diets, products, and tips promising to aid them in achieving that ideal beauty. When these products do not work as expected, women turn to the last, yet instant, resort-clinics offering cosmetic surgeries of all sorts. These include Botox treatments, liposuctions, "magic" creams, and anti-wrinkle treatments.
In Asia, Korean women top the list of which 53% have actually considered surgery. In the Philippines on the other hand, one cannot play blind to the overnight growth of such clinics in almost every city in the country. It is almost impossible to watch a local TV show or movie that does not credit the famous Dr. Vicky Belo, or perhaps Dr. Manny or Dr. Pie Calayan to whom many celebrities credit their glimmering not to mention "shining shimmering and flawless " lives.
Getting Enough Attention and Self-Esteem
We all automatically work hard to get attention, whether we call it that or not. Unfortunately, however, our THINKING about getting attention tends to be pretty passive. Instead of taking a few seconds to absorb and feel good about the attention we get, we just forge ahead doing more and more as if we are in some kind of a race.
Your self-esteem plays the biggest role in your life and influences your thoughts, ideas and decisions. You hear time and time again about how important having a high self-esteem is, yet most of us tend to find ways to lower it and keep it as low as it can possibly get. The reason behind this behavior is simply that you do not give yourself the credit you deserve and have not made yourself a true friend to your being.
Almost everyone automatically puts himself or herself down first when looking in the mirror. Have you ever stopped and observed the things you do like about your physical self? You probably have not. It is time to start doing that. The next time you look at yourself, find the physical qualities you like and accept in your being. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Well, the truth is, we were not born with the attitude of putting our selves down. We adapted and taught ourselves to do so when we watched what being perfect meant in the eyes of others. We are constantly being flaunted with people who are thin, big on top, muscular, small waists and long legs on television and other advertisements, that we got convinced into believing that we must look a certain way in order to be admired, accepted and perfect in society.
Remember, beauty and perfection is in the eye of the beholder and you should be that first beholder.
To Infinity and Beyond
Waistlines reduced by half, breasts enlarged, wrinkles erased, skin bleached, the much-coveted Angelina Jolie body-all in one day, no diet and exercise-free. What more could a woman ask for? Brad Pitt, perhaps.
After all, when all is said and done, beauty is still in the eye of the beholder. It's a cliché, but no one can deny how it still rings true after all these years.
Yes, the fact remains: the unforgiving and overwhelming yardstick is still out there beating women and forcing them into a Procrustean bed. Reality bites-books are really judged by their covers most of the time. But at the end of the day, it is not how much a woman spent on gym membership or on cosmetic surgery that counts. It is the secure knowledge that no matter what, there are the people dearest to her who will accept her and stay on her side even if all the make-up falls apart and the Botox treatment gives way to the wrinkles through the years. Because more often than not, it is the unwavering belief of these people based on something more than the yardsticks that keeps a woman going.
True Colors
Every step was agony for Lila Chiu. Nevertheless, she never once hesitated to walk to the only theatre in their town every Saturday to treat all eleven of her grandchildren to a movie.
When Lila Chiu passed away more than a decade ago, it sure was something more than her lily feet and weekly trips to the movie house that made her eleven grandchildren chip in their monthly allowance to have one of Lila Chiu's tiny shoes framed in a box. This served to immortalize the memory of someone who did not only silently bear the ache of walking to the cinemas every week, but of someone who gladly embraced pain in order to more gladly embrace the joys of watching John Wayne's The Alamo with her grandchildren.
No one really got around to asking Lila Chiu or her late husband how they got together. Maybe it was the lily feet. Maybe it was not. One thing is certain though: what made Lila Chiu and her husband survive the atrocities of the Second World War together was definitely something more than Lila Chiu's "half-baked" lily feet.
*Name has been changed to protect the individual
(For comments and suggestions please write to ladyochel@gmail.com)
(May 17, 2006 issue)
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