Sandra Oh Has A Donkey Face

So its been about a month since I've last posted on the blog, and while most of you would assume its because I've been deathly sick and incapacitated this whole time, the truth is I've just been lazy. I suppose I've been busy too, but I'll put most of the blame on me enjoying naps instead of writing. Anyways, this posting is focused on a bar conversation I had this past weekend with my old Chinese roommate Zhangyi, who I lived with when I studied in Beijing two years ago. Zhangyi is awesome, not just because he's funny, but because I can learn a lot about the Chinese culture by talking to him. This week I learned a bit about what Chinese men find attractive in women, and as you can probably guess it differs a bit from Western standards.

We can agree on at least one thing- Sandra Oh has a donkey face. But the reasoning behind her being ugly runs much deeper for the Chinese than for the average American. In fact, one of the main reasons most Chinese men feel Sandra Oh ugly applies to many women (many of whom I myself find attractive). According to Zhangyi, and of course Zhangyi speaks for the 1,000,000,000 + Chinese people in the world, something the Chinese take very seriously into account is whether or not a girl was one or two eyelids. I had never really thought about that before, and to be honest if you asked me which of my Chinese friends had one or two eyelids I don't think I could tell you. But since having that conversation I have begun observing Chinese girls more closely and have noticed that some have two eyelids and some just have one. Having two eyelids as opposed to one doesn't mean the girls don't look Asian, but there is a noticeable difference in their appearance. Take a look at the pictures to the leftt- you'll see the woman on top has one eyelid, while the woman on the bottom has two. Both are clearly Asian, but the one on the right has a bit more "puffiness" under her lower eyelid.

So, do you find one more attractive than the other? I personally don't see any difference in either of them, or at least not a noticeable enough difference to consider one better looking than the other. Still, to the Chinese (and for that matter most Asian cultures), this is a big enough difference to encourage drastic cosmetic surgery to be preformed in order to become "more beautiful." Just going online to try and find the above comparison shots lead me to many websites touting the pluses of getting Blepharoplasty, aka Double Eye-lid surgery. According to one website, approximately 75 percent of all Koreans and 50 percent of all other Asians are born without the double eyelid crease, meaning there are plenty of potential patients for this growing market! If you get a chance, read the above link- it has some very interesting viewpoints on the topic.

I asked Zhangyi if the same standards applied to men, and he told me no. Zhangyi himself has single eyelids, but he's proud of them. "I'm the only one in my family to be born with single eyelids, so I'm proud of being unique." I haven't asked any Chinese girls yet if that's true, but to be honest I don't know if I want to bring up this touchy topic or not with them.

So there you have it- Chinese men find Sandra Oh ugly in large part because she doesn't have double eyelids. Seeing that over half of the women in China also only have single eyelids, I wonder if half the population considers themselves settling down with ugly girls? Personally, and I think most Americans would agree, the eyelids aren't a factor at all, nor are some of the other traits the Chinese find attractive (such as pale skin). I'm interested to see what Chinese girls find attractive in a man- maybe that can help explain why so many Chinese girls here are dating foreigners!