I think it's been long accepted that Asians have been trying to conform to Western standards of beauty. But, what are Western standards of beauty? Quite frankly, I think Asians created their own standards, and set their women to those even-more-rigorous-than-Western standards. Think about it. Long has it been said that people are getting double eyelid surgery to look more Western, to have their eyes appear larger.
I don't see it. I don't see how this person looks any more "Western." To me, she changed from Korean/Chinese to Vietnamese/Thai. To look more Western, she'd have to actually change the shape of her eyes and get some brow bone silicone in the non-existent brow bone that plagues Asians. On the other hand, most people look better with a double eyelid. I give them that. Some, though, like Son Ga-In rock the monolid look like no other.
Then there is the issue of calves. I don't know if it's all photoshop, but it seems that in Asia, the skinnier your legs are, the more attractive it is. This is not an American concept. According to the tremendous amount of sites I compared myself to, Westerners prefer shaplier legs. Shapely, toned, but not fat. Longer, but not model long.
VS
Seeing these people make me feel insecure about myself, especially since it is an Asian norm to always wear heels. Maybe you don't see the difference in the legs, but I do. Blake Lively's aren't sticks. SNSD's (aside from Sunny and Taeyeon) are. And that's what's beautiful.
Seriously, how do you match up to that? You can't. It essentially tells you unless you have surgery, you can never achieve that level of perfection. Blake Lively's leg sexiness is achievable, mostly. Soo Young's? Then again, I suppose they are standards of beauty because they are unachievable. They are on magazines because they don't look normal, they are abnormally beautiful.
And then ulzzangs. I already posted about ulzzangs before. Some of the ulzzangs are dead gorgeous; really beautiful women with naturally big eyes, a small chin, white milky skin, everything an Asian wants to be: "Western." Still not Western. The thing is... Westerners don't have big eyes and small chins. From what I've seen, they look just as small as Asian eyes. I swear it's a brow bone thing; they only look larger because they're set back more.
Tell me, does this look Western to you? No.
These standards of beauty for Asian come from post-Cold War notions of what beauty should be, and has been warped so much that we no longer know what is attractive and unattractive. Something about it is attractive; something else about it looks so utterly repulsive. I feel ugly. I feel ugly here in Asia. I am dark, my eyes aren't that big even though I have double eyelids. Because today, you don't know who was born with it and who wasn't (although I think I'm able to tell who got surgery). I have moles all over my face and I have a prominent chin.
Then there's all the shit that Koreans have come up with, because in my opinion, Koreans seem to be the most obsessed with looks and beauty. S-line, v-line, Aegyo-sal, x-line, u-line, egg line, selca, honey thighs, eye smile. Seriously, who comes up with this shit and why does it matter so much? It matters because it is the norm; it is the whole reason why pop music is called pop music; it's popular. This is popular and so long as 80% of the world subscribes to it (because 80% of the world's people, according to a dear friend, are lambs who follow the herd wherever it goes) unconventional beauty in the sense of not being the subscribed norm is not beautiful. Until moles are made popular, my moles will always be a besmirchment of my otherwise pristine face. My legs will never be sexy; my curves will never be curvy enough. Who even knows if the pretty people are healthy or if they're starving themselves; but who cares, they're beautiful.
This is the plight of people who are already pretty. Pretty, but not pretty enough. Yes, I called myself pretty. Pretty, but not gorgeous. Damn.
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