- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
- 3
-
Sparkle (5)
Chinese Lunar New Year is just around the corner. What this usually means for me is another one of those potlucks at church, where there’s way too much food prepared by way too many aunties, or a yis as I fondly call them. Like most people, I can’t wait for the hot pots and steamed fish, but as a person who has struggled with my body image, the huge feast brings up complications. In order for me to get my hands on the delicious dishes that they’ve prepared, I have to brace myself for the string of, “Lisa! You’re back! You ______ (insert either lost/gained in blank) weight!”
These days, I’m always told that I look “skinnier,” even if I did gain weight. I suppose I’ve reached the age where being told that is what’s expected on such a joyous occasion. I usually laugh delicately, wave my hands in the air and say, “No! It’s just my face shape lying to you,” and say the exact same thing back to them. Looks like I’ve at least mastered something from my mother.
In any case, these events always make me nervous because I wonder when they’ll tell me that I’ve “fattened up” since they last saw me (which they are not shy to do), and make me recall the days when people weren’t so polite. Back then, my body wasn’t mine, but everyone else’s.
As a child, my parents had never fretted about my weight — they cared only that I stayed well and active. But by age eight, I was quite aware that I was bigger than most kids on the playground. And I have memories from seventh grade of wondering why it was a struggle to pull my knee-high socks over my oversized calves while my friends’ socks fell loosely about their ankles. I remember a cute boy I liked calling me “thunder thighs” during a dodgeball game.
Over the years, I became tired of not fitting into jeans the way most of my peers did. In fact, for a long time I didn’t wear jeans — it was too painful to confront the fact that I was a size ten, not a size six like the small and dainty girls I thought I should look like. Those fragile, submissive-looking girls manifested themselves in the books and television that I read and watched. They were always vulnerable, and waiting to be protected. For a girl who was constantly told that I was “too loud for an Asian,” I practiced my best “weak” expressions and postures in my interactions with the opposite sex because I thought that was what I needed to do to be desirable.
My Body Image Journey
When I was 18, I decided that I should live up to the expectations set for me. Together with my mom, we signed ourselves up to lose weight at a “specialty” spa in Taiwan.
“No solids after 6 p.m.”
”No liquids after 7 p.m.”
“No rice or noodles.”
“No fried foods.”
“No dairy.”
“No soda.”
Apparently, “no” is a key theme at the weight loss spa my mother and I frequent. At 6 a.m., half-awake, I hobble to the kitchen to scarf down my breakfast: a tiny bowl of granola and leftover fruit. For lunch, I wolf down half a ham sandwich, in which a bit of meat is dwarfed by a forest of leafy greens. No mayo; no mustard; no dressing. I chase it down with a shot of orange juice. Dinner is whatever I can squeeze in before 6. Usually, I get sautéed vegetables that have been drenched in boiling water so as to strip them of all sauce, grease and goodness. At age 18, when my primary goal was to become as beautiful as I could be, I followed this regimen for 90 days. Going far beyond food, the regimen also included cleansing, meditation and pep talks about how a new svelte body would match my beautiful face.
The weight-loss spa in Taipei, Taiwan, was a world where I could “fix” myself, namely by transforming my appearance to match my inner beauty. Once my body is perfect, improving the rest of me will be cake, I thought, optimistically shelving my old fear that I’d never be a size six.
I remember the moment when the wonder started, when my mother and I sat in the office of a mama-san type who described the treatments that would change my life. My mother, who had been a size zero as a young adult, listened intently. She was thrilled
