Mirrors of Insecurity

This was not what I intended to write this next blog about. On the other hand, I also intended to write this post a month ago and did not intend to write it when I meant to be working on my personal statement for grad schools. But I'm working on getting used to things not going as I intend, so I've decided to go with it. (Picture by Courtney).

I was writing my personal statement and working on accounting for my year in Korea. Specifically I was thinking about how on the one hand, certain western standards seem to have become the norm, or at least the desired goal, while on the other hand, westernization is certainly not complete. Korea is not Western, even if it has adopted certain aspects of the Western world. Of course this could get us into a long discussion of what exactly is Western since even among Western countries, there are differences in values and norms but for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick to that term.

These thoughts on standards train of thought reminded me of a set of opposing interactions I've had here. On the one hand, I have found myself completely outside the beauty standard I suppose. These have for the most part just been amusing, like students telling me I'm a man because I am too tall to be a woman or asking me why I have yellow hair. Other moments have been more comparative, like a group of young men being told to "go Korean" for women because they'll age better and still look good when white girls will look old. On the other hand, I've had conversations with young women who want to get their hair died to look like mine, or worse, have plastic surgery to get their eyes changed so they look like mine.

While I feel self-conscious from getting weird looks in the street, it seems a lot of the young women I know here are struggling with what they should look like. There is a push to conform to the standard, but they aren't sure what the standard is.

As much as some comments or looks I get make me feel insecure whether they are from students or from random middle-aged women in the store, I am far more uncomfortable when I get sincere compliments from beautiful friends who want to change everything about themselves.