This is an essay I wrote for a writing course at my university. Part of it are truths and part of it are fictional but that doesn't really matter because the message, the meaning behind this is important.
Women.
Strength.
Confidence.
and
Beauty.
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I was four years old when I first wore makeup. “Look how beautiful you were!” my mother said. She showed me an old, slightly creased photo. In it, a bewildered little Vietnamese girl stood next to an untamed rose bush, holding a giant red rose. Perplexed, I studied the picture a little longer, a little closer to make sure she was really me. She had a pale, white face tinted with slightly pink blush on her plump round cheeks. Bright red dainty lips completed the image—a true, living doll. “She can’t be me,” I thought.
Growing up, I was quite the tomboy. I ran wild like the wind, laughing while chasing butterflies and blowing soap bubbles under the bright blue skies. I never remembered ever having the flawless, white skin like the doll in the photograph; in fact, I was always tanned and sweaty. Being a carefree little girl, I didn’t worry about what the color of my skin was or how my face looked because all I ever wanted to do was bathe in the sunlight while picking flowers and eating sweet, sticky strawberry ice cream. The meaning of beauty had never crossed my mind. The only beauty I heard of was the compliments I received on my paintings of daisies and tulips. Nonetheless, to grow up also means to begin to realize that there is a larger world outside of oneself. I became aware of myself in relation to others, how I present myself, and in turn, how others see me. It was a sort of sub-conscious awakening of my own identity. That is when I began to realize that slowly but surely, the dreaded icky oil and embarrassing red dots had begun creeping across my forehead and cheeks. Yes, acne had crept up to me like the darkest shadows that once stalked me in my worst childhood nightmares. Oh, the oily mess, the dreaded imperfections. I withdrew from the world, shying away from the sun, hiding in embarrassment behind the mask of oils and flaring bumps. No longer could I look into others’ eyes without fearing that theirs was not on me, but on the mask that shamed me. On my eighth grade graduation day, my mother noticed and she went about setting things right.
For me, graduation day was any other ordinary day, but my mother thought otherwise. A special day requires special intervention on our imperfections. In the blink of the eye, under the expert hands of my mother, the blemishes and scars disappeared as my face suddenly turned smooth and flawless white. I admit though, I was part mosaic as my whitened face contrasted sharply with my tanned arms and legs. Nonetheless, I sat there fidgeting as my mother brushed the pink dust on my cheeks which was still plump as ever. She painted my eyes in shades of earthy beige. Cotton candy pink lips meant to match my pink skirt and glittery blouse finished the image. “Am I pretty now?” I wondered. “Well, this will have to do,” my mother sighed. I walked around campus that day, feeling more awkward and self-conscious than I had ever been before. The mask was thicker than ever. After the ceremony, I remember leaning over the bathroom sink, frustratingly washing the foundation off. It felt like it would never come off. Since then, I have always questioned myself. What is beauty? What does it mean to be beautiful? Must I stay indoors to prevent my skin from getting darker? Must I always pay attention to every blemish and wrinkle on my face, to every stray piece of hair and imperfection? The external world seems to dictate what I should look like and who I should become. What was more unsettling was the fact that I began to slowly internalize that view.
You see, the body is very important for a girl, especially the face. After all, the face is the first part of a person you see, the first part that is judged. That is why it is very important to take care of how you present yourself. My mother would agree as she never left the house without flawless, white skin and I vaguely remember hearing my older sister waking up, stumbling about in the early morning, getting ready for school as she applied layer after layer of mascara and crimson colored lipstick. The television and magazines would certainly agree too. If you open a magazine this moment, you would surely find a picture of a young woman, but she is not any ordinary woman. Her eyes are captivating. You become mesmerized at her flawlessness and perfect features. She draws you into another world, an ideal world where there is no frizzy hair, flabby stomachs, and most importantly, blemishes, oily skin, and under eye bags. Beauty has never been so perfect before. Perfection has never been so unreachable before. In the deepest depths of despair, I realized I could never be the living doll, the woman in the magazine, the object of perfection. It was an illusion all along. “So what can I do now?”
They say to accept yourself, love yourself, and be who you are. Easier said than done; but, I was willing to try. I turned off the television and closed the magazines. College life is too busy for those kinds of hobbies, so I searched for new ones. I signed up for a beginning belly dance class, hoping to learn a new skill as well as to learn more about my own body and myself in the process. I was anxious. “People are staring! I can’t mess up.” Hip up. Hip down. Repeat. “Easy enough,” I thought. Next, my instructor, Nina, taught the hip shimmy. Looking around at my fellow classmates, I could not help but smile at how awkward we all looked trying to copy her movements. “How did she do that?” Failure became a habit but I did not mind. “Remember to smile!” Nina would constantly remind us. Slowly but surely, like a slow rising tide, I began laughing again. I flailed about, swaying my hips without the least embarrassment or thought of who was watching or judging. I spun while my hands sailed through the air. Energy flowed down my arms and through the fingertips. I could feel a great warmth bursting from within. My friends say they could see it in my eyes, rosy cheeks still plump as ever, and wide toothy grin. It was obvious. Why hadn’t I realized it sooner that it was there, nestled deeply within me all these years? I was no longer afraid, no longer hidden.
This year, I turned twenty-one years old. My roommates had promised to dress up and take me out for a nice small dinner party. I put on my best clothes—a black and white stripped skirt, a fancy cream blouse, and a long burgundy sweater. In the bathroom, my roommates crowded around the mirror, each with their own makeup pouch by their side, meticulously applying on foundation, mascara, eye shadow, and lipstick. Turning to me, one of my roommates asked, “Yen, why don’t you try some too?” and she handed me a rose colored lipstick. Curiously, I took the small stick and glided the smooth red tip over my lips and puckered up. I studied my face in the mirror, tracing the uneven skin tone, slight blemishes and past, painful scars. I turned back to her. “It’s just not for me,” I said, smiling, as I wiped it off. Tearing down the mask was indeed not easy. It took years of agonizing contemplation, self-inflicted traumas and a constant assessment and re-assessment of one’s identity within the larger world. Nonetheless, I could feel it now—the warm, comforting sensation within, like a small flame burning in the middle of a cold winter night.
