Asian Skinny Syndrome: are Asian girls going a bit too far?

Look at the picture of this girl above. What's your first impression of her? Amazing figure? Too thin? Can you believe that some actually think she's fat? I bet most of you won't know that she's considered to have thunder thighs in Taiwan. 

No joke here's the proof. On a Taiwanese show called '女人我最大' (W Queen) which tries to teach girls how to be 'prettier' in the utmost futile fashion, a male 'teacher' tells her that her thighs are so thick she resembles an athletics athlete.

It's so hard to believe just what standards the Asians have for 'skinny'. In the west, a skinny figure includes a large range of sizes from borderline anorexic to a healthy weight. But in Asia, chances are that if you have at a healthy weight, you are likely to be 'chubby'. For example Korea's Goo Hye Sun is considered by Taiwanese people to be '肉肉的' or 'chubby' (in a less patronising way).

she is... chubby?!

I've always been fascinated by Asian girls' perception of the perfect body way back in secondary school, because of personal interests in Asian culture, but recently I'm beginning to wonder whether people are taking it too far. People on TV demonstrating the weirdest exercises for isolated fat areas, for example punching your arm flab to diminish it or rubbing your arms towards your shoulders so that the fat would travel to your boobs. And watching all these girls on the shows and in the video comments being genuinely intrigued by these cult like beliefs and trying them out for themselves, I think to myself: do they really have no sense of judgment? There must be something out there that brainwashes these people to believe that every 'secret to skinniness', no matter how absurd, is worth investing time and money into.

Being Asian myself and thus having a rough idea of the Asian standards of skinniness in the back of my mind, I've always controlled my weight so that I'm at least not 'fat' in their standards. Right now I'm definitely at a healthy weight according of the UK BMI charts and body mass tests by my gym, but in Asia, I would be considered 'chubby'. Why do I know this? Well in uni I have been constantly pestered by some Taiwanese girlfriends that I need to lose weight around my middle and face. My western friends who don't give two shits about my weight because they know I'm healthy keep telling me to ignore them because it's damaging my self esteem, but it's not easy to brush off one year's worth of constant remarks about my weight and body shape.

What I find very interesting is that someone like me, who never thought that I was ever 'fat' or had to change my body shape, actually began to contemplate whether I should be losing a lot of weight when I was constantly reminded by these people. The girls AND the guys do it, all the time, so I figured that this must be a fundamental part of them that defines who they are. They make these snide remarks out of friendship, or so they think, because they think it's a very honest and supportive thing to point out to their friends that they need to lose weight so that they all maintain their shapes. It's pretty obvious that they live their lives with this topic at the tip of their tongues and the top of their heads. The very first thing they'd say to me after sharing pleasantries on campus would be something along the lines of: 'Oh! You look so thin today!' or 'Omg! Your face is so round!', followed by coming forth to pinch my arms or standing back to observe my legs. I find that they do this with each other as well, but never to non-Asian people (but they'll definitely make lots of silent observations and share them with me privately at a later session).

I know that they do this out of courtesy, as if they care about you because they care about your body so that's why they speak about it all the time. But sometimes I wonder what influenced them to begin the whole judgment process in the first place? I began thinking a lot more about my body because of them, but what made them start? Surely it must be the culture and media since that's how they grew up. And a little more research into Taiwanese media definitely answered that question for me.

Long story short, the Taiwanese media openly available for Taiwanese girls like myself are the epitome of brainwashing. Some of the thinking is so backwards for females, and almost all real feminine qualities are played down to almost nothing. it's all hushed up and never talked about. Yet girls willingly take the ludicrous advice to heart. Summed up, around 80% of a woman's appeal in Taiwan is made up of her looks. Men openly admit that they choose girlfriends by looking at their makeup and figures than their personalities. Over here in the West, it would still be right to say that a guy is attracted to a girl by her appearance, but he would remain by her side when he find out that the girl has a great personality. In Taiwan, a guy would be attracted to a girl because of her appearance, but would stay on being her boyfriend because she has remained 'beautiful'. Once on a show a guy said that he doesn't judge a girl by her makeup and hair. I remember smiling to myself feeling that not all hope is lost for Taiwanese men and hoped that he would say something more sensible. But then he just proceeded to say that the first thing he looks at are whether the girls' legs are lean and long, and that things would go from there. Then all the girls present just 'oh'ed and nodded in acknowledgement when I was just sitting there thinking 'are you being serious right now'. would have stood up and punched the guy's face in.

Talking about downplaying feminist qualities in China, I must mention here that some of the things men think and do on a daily basis in regards to treating their women is just unbelievable. First of all, a good looking girl would be called '正妹' or 'correct sister', as if being thinned down to the bone was the 'correct' way for a girl to be. When guys talk about bringing their girlfriends out on dates, they would say '把女朋友带出来' or '把女朋友领出来' which means 'bringing out my girlfriend' (the word '带' is used for objects or small kids) and 'leading my girlfriend out' (the word '领' is used for animals, normally dogs). Men use these phrases even in front of girls and one even said '把女朋友带出来一定要正，不能输给别人' which means 'if I take my girlfriend out, she has to be pretty ('correct'); she can't lose to anyone'.

And let me tell you something douchebag, if you bring your girlfriend out to dates just so that you can make sure she is prettier than all the girls out there, you'd be 110% better off without one.

Too often have I seen slimming/beauty products advertised with the slogan 'You'll get a man with the blink of an eye'. If you trim your hair, your face will look smaller and boys will be after you. If you consume this boob supplement, you will have '黄金比例' (golden proportions) and you will get a guy. If you wear this skirt with this top, you will show off your legs and get a man. Imagine if products like this were available in the west. Imagine if you switched on your TV and instead of idk Gok Wan or Weightwatchers you see a bunch of size 0-2 girls complaining about their weight and nodding like dumb sheep to guys saying they prefer body over brains.. it seems like a joke that will just never happen over here.

I personally think skinny is beautiful just as any other body weight. If you're not suffering from health problems due to your weight, then you are beautiful. End of story. However I have a problem saying to myself 'hey, skinny Chinese girls are beautiful too!' because a lot of the time, their skinniness look so artificial and unhealthy. Take Cindy Wang and Angela Zhang as classic examples. They just look like they've painfully starved themselves, even though I know they're already naturally thin. What I see is not a thin healthy body; I see a slightly tortured and unnatural body and it doesn't make me feel good knowing that they're role models for girls out there.

Let me give you just a tiny snippet from the huge deadpan well of info on the same old shit that is the Taiwanese beauty media. Last year, there was a new (and the most extreme) way to test out whether you need to lose weight around your middle.

You take an elastic sweatband, one you would put around your HEAD, but instead you put it around your WAIST.

That's right. And if that tight piece of elastic squeezes out some fat, it means you need to lose weight.

As absurd as it sounds, I'm not kidding you:

Now what do you guys think of this girl's figure below?

Normal and on the thin side right? Look at her waist!

Wrong! Actually if she turns around, you can see that the elastic squeezes out some 'fat' on the sides. 

I mean seriously Taiwan? Are you actually sane when you produced this program. Because let me tell you something you ought to know. If you put a piece of ELASTIC that was supposed to fit around your HEAD onto your WAIST, then it will DEFINITELY squeeze out some meat on normal people. If it doesn't you're either a skeleton, anorexic or SICK. 

And if you didn't think this was cruel enough on this poor girl as it is, one of the 'teachers' on the show (who solely teach girls how to be 'beautiful' on the outside) asks her to sit down so that the others can laugh a bit more at her 'fat'.

And as if calling that cute band of man made fat 'terrifying' was not bad enough, the MALE 'teacher' on the show bends over, and in his screeching-cat annoying voice calls out to the presenter to observe what he's about to do. He pulls the elastic band lower down her torso where there's supposed to be more body matter, and gasps at how 'petrifying' her lower waist is.

And lesson to be learnt here: if a guy says you are terrifyingly fat by putting an elastic band on the widest part of your body, making fun of you in front of your friends on live television, remove him from all aspects of your life and never venture to communicate with him ever again.

Then we have the female teacher pulling at her fat painfully and announcing to everyone that if you can pull out some fat like this, it means you have VERY high chances of getting '心血管疾病' or cardiovascular disease. Okay then.

Just to show you how VULGAR the male 'teacher' is, he calls a very thin girl on to put the band around her waist and mocks her that 'the band will not be stuck around her boobs', basically laughing at how her boobs are small.

I mean what this actual FUCK is wrong with you? What does the size of her boobs have anything to do with you?

Then Shao Ting, the ultra skinny super model is called on for the test, and even though she passed her waist test easily, she still doesn't escape nasty comments about her thighs being fat from the oh-so-knowledgeable male 'teacher'. He proceeds to put the band around her thighs and dramatically acts out a 'breath of relief' upon seeing that there is some space between the band and her leg muscle.

I mean, for goodness sake. Can you even believe it??

In Taiwan, THIS girl is considered to have FAT LEGS

What I find hilarious is that it is only after she passes her waist test does everyone present claim that she is skinny, as if they couldn't tell whether she was skinny or not beforehand just by looking at her. And tbh what right have you all got to say she's fat? Does that make you a better person? At the end of the day she's a beautiful girl with a beautiful heart, and that's all that matters. 

And from another episode, the presenter claims that these two girls are the 'fatty team', saying that if they were to drown in the sea, three grown men would be needed to carry each of them to safety because they're so heavy. I was expecting  some real obese women but to my 'surprise', these size 8 girls walked out:

Come onnn, I could carry BOTH of them by myself from sea to land and not even break a sweat.

So you get an idea of what Taiwanese girls are exposed to everyday. Asking stupid things of themselves so that they can get guys or keep their boyfriends happy. I want my readers to know that this is absolutely NOT what beauty is about. Beauty comes of being healthy, and that comes from being at a healthy weight, with a healthy state of mind. You have to set realistic goals for yourselves, and make time for some other more worthy things in your life. If a guy sets out a visual framework for what he thinks his girl should be like, I beg you just leave him, because he's 100% not ready to be in a real relationship. Why are you even with a guy if you don't feel comfortable being yourself with him most of the time? Think girls. The person you want to be is NOT what the TV, internet or magazines tell you to be. As cliche as it may seem, everyone is born unique and it is the best asset you can hold true to only yourself. So why change that?

And to the guys, please understand that not all girls are born as slim and perfect visually as you want them to be. We work hard on keeping up with our appearances already so please show some respect for our efforts. If, at the end of the day you still do not like how we look, then please leave us because chances are someone else out there will overlook these things and love us for the inner person that we are. Even if you cannot bear to look at us don't make us change according to your standards if there was nothing wrong with us to begin with. And remember that when we try to look good it's mostly for ourselves to feel good on the inside and not to show off to you. So if you want to compliment a girl, beginning with the thickness of her legs is NOT a good way to start.

I'll end with an interesting video a similar problem in S. Korea: