‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,’ this we can’t deny there is some truth to it. I think we’ve tried to pin point what is considered beautiful, what about Miss Universe, even this, we all have different opinion and can’t agree on who we think is the most beautiful. Why is that so? might be because it’s not a physical concrete as we all see, but more of a feeling that we have and beauty trends varies in different part of the world, thin might be considered sexy in certain part of the world but starvation, pathetically skinny in others.
What about this headline, “Thai “human zoo” cashes in on tribal refugees: “Giraffe-neck” Burmese women,” sounds awful don’t it. According to the article, the tradition of encasing a female’s neck in metal reportedly began years ago to stop rivals from kidnapping them. By making Padaung tribe females too freakish to be desired by others, the coils also allowed them to be identified easily if they were captured.
The ‘giraffe-neck women’ have been put on display for tourist to gawk at, alongside kitschy long-neck souvenirs including dolls, key chains, T-shirts, pen sets, portraits and post cards. They are somewhat exotic to look at and I’m sure they’re considered beautiful for some.
As I was growing up, I’ve noticed that most of my Chinese friends have very small feet; I was told that long feet are ugly. I thought it was rather strange; I’ve normal size feet for my height. It’d be odd for me to have small feet, I wouldn’t be able to balance myself, might just tilt over or something.
Then one of my best friends told me that back in China, girls with big, long feet are considered ugly. I was baffled, I think she just called me ugly, but she went on and explained that back in ancient China, for a woman to be considered beautiful, she must have a very small feet. How small? The size of the cigarette carton. What? True, and she said that the parents would wrap or bound their baby’s feet to prevent normal growth, ouch…sounds painful.
Hmm, the size of cigarette carton, no wonder she thought I was ugly, I’m a size 8 and when I purchased shoes in Chinatown, NY several years back, they looked at me as if I was a freak or something, might have never seen such giant feet before. But just the thought of it, I can’t imagine how these women would be able to balance themselves, and I certainly don’t see the beauty in that at all and might be because I’m not from that era, and region.
This Chinese tradition of feet bounding had been passed down for over several decades, but has changed when the communist took over, and might be because everyone has to work equally, small feet just wouldn’t cut it, which I’m glad because I think it’s torturing to have this kind of beauty. I just don’t see the beauty in deformity of the feet, but the ideas are still there for many Chinese people, small feet are still considered beautiful. I wonder if Chinese guy would look at the feet before face, I need to pay closer attention the next time I see my Chinese male friends.
I often wonder who sets up the trend of beauty; it seems to change pretty often. Is it the males, the designers, or the individual female setting her own beauty trends?
Nye Noona 