This week’s guest blogger is Hanna, the author of the too-cute (and witty as hell) fashion blog, appropriate titled Oh, Honey. No. She offers the point of view of a girl who grew up with the influences of Asian culture surrounding her, and this is her story of overcoming family pressures and expectations. She is an amazing writer, and has even decided to participate in The Demoiselles’ No Makeup Challenge with the photo used in this post. If you’d like to let Hanna know how her post affected you, or give feedback, please send all thoughts to guestblogger@thedemoiselles.com.

Turn back the clock about 15 years. Nine-year-old me is bored out of her skull at my mother’s childhood home in a tiny, middle-of-nowhere Southeast Asian town. It is hot, it is dusty, and I have unearthed a treasure trove of sepia-tinged photos of vaguely familiar faces that I am making a game out of trying to recognize. As my grandmother passes by, she stops to jab at a framed graduation portrait of my mother to say, “You see! You see how thin your mother was! Thinner than you are now, even.” (Cue the look of disdain at my tubby kid’s belly.) She pauses. Then, wistfully, “And then she put on all that weight AFTER SHE HAD YOU.” And then she’s off. And my childhood self is left to ponder on what on earth that could possibly mean.

Nowadays, when people talk about negative body image, they try to pin the blame on the media’s unrealistic portrayals of beauty, when sometimes the root causes are a lot closer to home. The Asian ideal of the thin, petite woman is a concept I’ve lived with and been compared to my entire life. That exchange with my grandmother? That was just the tip of an ancient, icky iceberg. You know the type: the nosy, loud Asian aunts who somehow graduated from pinching your cheeks when you were really little to berating you for their size as you got older. My “bigger” sister (a US size 6) was often flatly told she was getting fat at family gatherings; my aunt once told me, at the time 5’4” and all of 105 pounds, that I had developed “an unpleasant double chin;” even my mother once told me to change out of my chosen outfit before a dinner out because it made me look “so big.”

I’ve always prided myself on taking all the comments in stride, but now that I live and work so far from home, visits have become a trial. I’ve been underweight most of my life, but had such unhealthy eating habits that once I was done with college, I knew things had to change. I began cooking my own meals and eating regularly, and put on some weight. But every time the wheels of the plane touch down on that tarmac, my stomach twists into knots. I am bombarded by comments about how round my face has become, how much bigger I am, how I have “changed so much” (code for: You’re a fatass, and nobody will want to marry you). When you’re told this so regularly, you can’t help but let the little jabs get through your armor. It takes all my strength to tell myself that I am still beautiful, healthy, and completely normal, and family gatherings often leave me exhausted and doubting myself – a feeling I hate.

These problems aren’t my own, either. Facebook feeds unearthed a recent wall post by a distant acquaintance whose summer mission is to become “a skinny bitch like Lindsay Lohan” Her chosen method? Eating one meal a day and then throwing it up.

It’s easy to get pissed off and blame the media for all of this, but the media is so much easier to get away from than the loving grips of your own family, and the upbringing and culture that surrounds you day by day. You can turn off your TV, you can stop buying magazines – but what can you do about your relatives? 15 years on, I’m still trying to erase the lessons learned by my 9-year-old self. Wiping the slate clean isn’t easy, but I chalk it up to a personal victory that at least now I can look those nosy relatives who feel the need to ask “Oh, so you’ve put on quite a bit of weight, haven’t you?” right in the eye, and tell them “Yes. And I love it!”

Definitely make a trip to visit Hanna’s blog, Oh, Honey. No. and send any comments or thoughts about this post to guestblogger@thedemoiselles.com.

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