About Nude Not Naked

Slitty eyes. Tan skinned. Flat nose. Chinak face.

These are but a few of the remarks I received as a child. If impressions are made at a young age, I have quite a few impressions of beauty. You see, when I was a child, I was tan. I had small, slitty eyes and a nose bridge so flat, I could be mistaken for a Persian cat.

Imagine going for wedding dinners and nothing good can be said about your facial features? The only one adjective not used to describe me was “fat” because I was neither fat nor thin. I was just average.

Mother was very kind and she comforted me often (in my presence). “Don’t care what they say. What is the most important is that you are smart.” However while I was out of ear shot, she’ll reel at my father for it was often his side of the family that made fun of my physical features. Mother was the one who encouraged me to look beyond my physical beauty and look into my mind and my heart – that beauty could only take me to a certain level. But if I wanted respect from society, I need to use what sits on top of my shoulders: my brain.

However I also possessed the most pragmatic of mothers. After comforting and encouraging me to excel academically, she would add, “In any case, mummy has allocated a portion of money for you to go for plastic surgery. Fix your eyes like Aunty L and fix your nose like my friend, Mrs. T. Both married successful businessmen and are happy.”

So I grew up not only with a study fund. I grew up with a beauty fund too! It was the very thing that will save me from taunting from my aunties and paternal grandmother.

The most ironic thing happened. Everything changed as I grew – from teenage years to my 20s. Somehow my facial features changed as I grew! It is the most ironic thing. Now I have the largest set of eyes in the family, with deep double eyelids and a balanced nose. My jawline slimmed and my forehead just did its thing. Nature took its course and voila! I am no longer fugly.

So now while we sit at reunion and wedding dinners, all the relatives go on and on about how much my features have changed. “Oh my, Otto. You looked different! Remember last time you used to have such a flat nose?” Okay my relatives are still rubbing the old wound but I really do not care anymore.

I literally don’t fucking care about what they thought about me anymore. I knew who I was and it took me some years to realize that I am fine just the way I am. I am still tanned, compared to my fairer Chinese sisters but I am actually very proud of that.

Yesterday while I was at the petrol station filling petrol, the lady boss came over for a chat. She commented that the day was very hot and that I should have worn long sleeves. I replied that it would only make everything feel hotter (especially over my mop of hair).

“Long sleeves to keep the sun away from your skin mah. Fairer,” she said.

“Aunty, I don’t want to be fair. I am happy just the way I am,” I replied.

She then mumbled the compulsory courteous, “Yeah, you look much nicer with tanned skin anyway. Hitam manis.”

It is also ironic that I am giving hope to my close girlfriend. She gave birth to a daughter three years ago and since then, has been having deep conversations with her husband and family, on how the little girl looked. It is the same comment all over again: Flat nose and slitty eyes. She was worried her daughter is fugly and could not be married out later in life.

It goes without saying that in her family home, I become the celebrated comfort factor.

“Wah your daughter has such a flat nose,” Aunty 1 said.

“But Otto had a very flat nose too and look, her nose is fine now,” my gf said.

“But your daughter also got such small slitty eyes, so Chinak!”

“Wah you won’t believe how small Otto’s eyes were! Now her eyes look fine what,” came the swift reply.

The conversation went back and forth, back and forth between the grandparents, the parents and the busybody relatives. They basically condemned my childhood self to death, only to redeem it by saying I don’t look that bad these days. I don’t think it was meant to be a compliment and if it was, it sounded bad.

But back to my gf’s daughter: I told PY that features will change as the child grows up and that my girlfriend need not worry. “So don’t worry dear, Otto last time was so ugly as a child, nowadays look quite pleasant what. So our daugher got hope,” is the sentence that the couple use to comfort each other as their daughter grows up into a healthy and smart 3 year old.


***
The morale of this ugly duckling childhood story is – our facial features change as we mature. Dawn could have just changed, just like I did. She could have also gone under the surgeon’s scalpel, that I do not deny. My mother had a piggy bank in place for the day I would get my nose and eye jobs done. But those days did not come to pass. Maybe Dawn's mother had a little piggy bank too? Maybe Dawn's day did not come and she decided to take matters into her own hands, quite literally.

So whatever happened to “Otto’s Beautification Fund”? I used my plastic surgery fund for something far more beneficial - to study in London.


***
I think more people are curious about Dawn’s surgeon (as compared to Dawn). I for one, am! Whoever that doctor is, he deserves a pat on his back for creating such a beautiful creature to walk among us, mere mortals.

Growing up thinking that one day I will became beautiful when a doctor makes me pretty, I am quite adjusted to the idea of plastic surgery. However, unlike Dawn, I won’t have one when I am in my early 20s. Why, you asked.

What else is there to look forward to in my 40s, if all the surgeries are done now?