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I didn't think I was pretty when I was 9.
Neither did I think that way when I was 10.
In all honesty, I believe it was till I was 14 that I started embracing what was on the outside of myself.
And I say 'started' because even then there were still parts of me which I despised and it was an uphill struggle to ignore all looks and comments from others especially during this volatile period called youth.
Being the first daughter in the family, I naturally grew up being exposed to Disney Princesses and make-up at a young age. I played with barbie dolls all day long and even got one of those Brat dolls which are basically huge scary doll heads with a full on wig for you to play with. But of course I thought she was the prettiest thing that a 8 year old can ever ask for.
However, this exposure to dolls left a deep seated impression in my head that beauty was looking like Barbie and Cinderella, there wasn't any other option.
Although I did look at my mum and grandma often and thought that they were beautiful, it somehow registered in my head that what they had was an "adult beauty" or "motherly beauty" and I was a little whose kind of pretty only meant one thing- to look like Barbie.
Well thinking back about it now, I realise how screwed up Barbie is and how it can really mess up little girls' perception of beauty from a young age.
It didn't help that I had/have rather oriental looking features- small eyes, single eyelids, non-existent cheekbones etc.
Besides facial features, I learnt swimming at a young age and my skin is "hypersensitive" to the sun such that I tan realllllly quickly.
So yes I became rather tan and it kinda stuck on to me through primary school.
Well given the above conditions and my screwed up perception of beauty, I hated my appearance through the 6 years in primary school.
Also, I went to a mixed gender school which although exposed me to boys and made me rather active and "boyish", I faced the immature playful misdoings of naive 12 year old boys who knew nothing about consequences
One such incident/accident scarred me really bad.
I hated that kid after that.
And although I understood later on that they didn't mean to hurt me back then, the physical scar/consequence of their stupid act was and is still here and I'm still dealing with it.
The funny thing was that most of my friends were boys back in primary school.
I suppose I didn't quite fit into my perception of what "pretty" was meant to be so I naturally hung out with the guys whom seemed more fun anyway.
They didn't really care if they stank or had a bad hair day.
But then hanging out with boys got me thinking that a girl's beauty is only and has to be determined by a boy.
After all you have to be Pretty to get Prince Charming to sweep you off your feet and drive you to a castle in a carriage yes? -PIORITIES OF 12 YEAR OLD HANJING.
(Zzzz i'm so pissed at myself right now for being so deluded back then but oh well, at least I know better now. I can ride my own horse while Prince Charming rides his and we can race to the castle and I will reach first. Jk castles are creepy these days and I won't dare to ride a horse and why on earth should a guy be called Prince CHARMING?? A guy called Prince Charming would easily make him far from charming my ass off. -Thoughts of 19 year old hanjing)
Unfortunately that thought stuck with me when I entered secondary school.
Which was yet again another mixed gender school, but thankfully I had great friends of both genders. ^^
I think it was a crucial moment of my life to have had a group of amazing girl friends because they subconciously changed my take on beauty.
In secondary school, I got to learn what was deemed pretty from another girl's point of view and that helped to alter my thought on physical beauty.
I learnt that a girl's perception of beauty is sometimes if not 99% of the time more relatable and also that a teenage boy's perception of beauty can be very skewed and sometimes even revolting so I was clearly on the wrong team in primary school.
Also, I suppose puberty kicked in and well I started having a waist for starters hahaha.
I remember looking into the mirror one day before showering and it suddenly struck me: "Ohmygoodness, I have hips. And a waist. And is this a butt???"
Yeah, and I started wearing contact lenses because of colorguard so that made me feel a lot more confident about myself too.
But although I had widened my scope of what beauty consists of, inner beauty and all that jazz, there were still parts of me that I could not love.
I wouldn't name names for the sake of the other's privacy and to avoid all forms of awkwardness for myself, but there was an incident that kinda kicked my confidence back down several notches when I was still figuring myself out.
(lol if this was you, please just pretend that you've never read this.)
While I was out with this friend, he had the tendency to comment on my posture and often asked me to straighten my back. I didn't have any back posture issue then (I was in a military band for goodness sake, our backs are almost vertical to the ground all the time) so needless to say I grew annoyed at his frequent "reminders".
There was one time when I casually retorted that I didn't need it and he too casually slid in the sentence that "standing straight is good, it doesn't make you as flat chested".
I do not recall his exact words but the damage was done.
I wasn't the most well-endowed girl back when I was 15 (and heck it neither am I now but I have learnt to love being smaller on top... it is a blessing to get away with running in a regular bra without any unsightly bouncing trouble)
But back to the main point, I was fighting a battle with my body and this was a day that I didn't feel good about myself.
I went home that day and cried myself to sleep.
It may sound rather comical or melodramatic now but right then and there, there is something very painful and heartbreaking about not being able to like who you see in the mirror.
The constant comparison to the Barbie standards and girls around me and flawless looking models on magazines was a real struggle.
As of right now, at the age of 19, i still bear some or most of the same traits I had when I was younger.
I'm still tanned, atheletically build and I still have asian eyes.
However, I see these traits in a different light now and have grown to love the caramel brown tan on my skin that many try to get by spending far too many unhealthy hours under the sun. And my oriental looking eyes which I've found out saves me a lot of hassle on using eyeliner since the lines are practically invisible when drawn on. Plus my lashes are pretty short but thick so I am blessed with natural eyeliner I guess. (lol funny story, I was once pulled aside by my discipline master for supposingly wearing makeup on my eyes. Needless to say, I was flattered and she was very embarrassed.)
But all jokes aside, and to be completely raw and honest here, it took me a very very long while to be comfortable in this skin.
And this long journey took more late nights crying than my fingers can count, many many many motivating articles/blog posts on feminism and beauty, literature lessons where I learnt about social standards and how messed up it can be as well as a few very special people (friends and family) who saw the beauty in me and helped me see when I was blind to it.
Even during JC, when my insecurity was acting up occasionally, I was very blessed to have a friend that helped me to see what little I saw of myself and all the rest of me that I did not see.
This sounds cheesy as heck but he liked me when I thought I looked the grossest and felt the nastiest- he liked me at my worst.
And that was an eye opener to me and made me love myself a lot more from the inside out and outside in.
