beauty standards

🖐🏻🔴 HELLO DARLINGS! BLURRED COLOURS AND FADED SHAPES MAKE THIS WORK SO GENUINE AND GREAT.

lost in reverie

“pretense,” oil on canvas

On trips back to China, it was always amusing to hear relatives praise my height, considering my grand stature of five-two. (You can imagine how short the local girls were.) But quickly followed by that would be acclamations for my skin color, or the lack thereof. Bái. That’s the word for white. There’s even a Chinese proverb, Yī bái zhē sān chǒu, which translates as “A white complexion can hide all other faults.”

At the time, I did not yet understand the notion of racial hierarchy due to skin color. Growing up in the Bay Area as an Asian American, I’ve been exposed to cross-cultural interactions throughout my life: I’ve enjoyed Biryani at Indian parties or Rugelach at Jewish ones, sometimes being the only Chinese girl there. I’ve tried learning Hangul, binged anime with my brother, and I’ve taken my racially-diverse friend group…

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