A History of

Fashion Fetishes & Beauty Standards

for Chinese Women

Anne Chen Material Culture in Modern China Exhibition Multimedia Presentation

Part I:

Footbinding

Museum Exhibit: Paintings, Photographs & Shoes

Foot binding originated in the imperial courts of the Five Dynasties and became popular among ordinary people in later years. It became especially common in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). The toes (except the big toe) of girls aged between 5 and 6 were bent towards the sole with a long cloth to prevent them from growing. In this way ,women’s feet became a “3-inch golden lotus”, similar in appearance to a bamboo shoot.

From “chanzu” to “tianzu” to “fanzu”…

Why “Chanzu”? (bound feet)

“Nei” v. “Wei”

The gender ideal: Women inside, men outside.

Eroticism

The sexual appeal: Tiny feet, fun to fondle.

Though footbinding was banned in 1912, its effects to the women who’d already endured its tortuous process couldn’t be removed.. Left crippled both physically and mentally, many can barely walk, let alone dance, squat, or perform other movements. Frequent falls and severely low bone densities are also common.

Seem a little too familiar?

Part II:

The Body The Athlete

The Fashion Model

Museum Exhibit: Couture Dresses

Has strong become the new skinny? The “quality” of one’s body is often measured by military strength and fitness ability.

Athlete

Model

Fashion shows aren’t considered beauty contests – they serve only one purpose: show the clothes. With their bodies subservient to the market, then, models are deemed more mannequin than woman.

The Chinese women’s body is “divided up into parts and quantified with numbers that were supposed to approach international standards.”

– Susan Brownell

Whether through painful surgery or rigorous training, obtaining the “perfect” body is not easy.

For female athletes, sticking to a strict weekly routine is critical to achieving that “ideal” body. Typically, they follow a six-week schedule, with each day kicking off at 6:30 AM and training lasting the entire day. On their itinerary: exercise, physical therapy, and ideological education. The high demands on both mind and body helps coaches easily weed out the weak.

“We players were 100 per cent obedient to our coaches and leaders at the time. I never thought of asking coaches to adjust my training load, even when I was sick. Exhausted and upset by my coach’s demands and my poor physical condition, I cried, and even screamed, in exasperation almost every day.”

– Dong Tianshu, volleyball player.

Right: Evidence of cupping – an Eastern medicine technique used to treat shoulder and back neck pain – can be easily seen on the back of Olympic swimmer Wang Qun.

“In this part of the world, height is a sign of status, and oftentimes, it’s a prerequisite for success. Minimum height requirements are not unusual for many jobs, for admission to some colleges, even to land a date.”

– Lisa Ling, American journalist and writer.

Leg-Lengthening Leg extension surgery involves a doctor breaking a patient’s legs

and inserting metal pins into the bones, just below the knees.

“The pins are then attached to a metal frame and every day for months the patient tightens the knobs a small amount despite excruciating pain. By constantly forcing the ends of the broken bones apart before they can heal, more new bone comes in to fill in the gaps.”

– Clifford Coonan, reporter for The Independent.

Model Stats

Maximum Age: 23

Minimum Height: 1.75 m

Largest Bust: 90 cm

Largest Hips: 92 cm

Smallest Waist: 49 cm

– Jessy (5’3”), a 27 year-old woman considering the leg-lengthening procedure.

“ I want to be 5’6 or 5’7”. Just being tall makes me feel confidence. I’m always jealous when I see tall girls walking around. I want to be just like them. ”

Part III:

Beauty & The Bleach

Museum Exhibit:

Paintings, Photographs & Skin-Lightening Products

Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 BC)

1900s Present

The idea of “one white covers up three ugliness” is still strongly believed today – in fact, a survey taken by Hong Kong men in 2002 found that two-thirds of the subjects admitted to preferring fairer skin on women. It is no surprise, then, that over the last few years the skin whitening business has blossomed into a billion dollar industry, with cosmetic giants all over the world pouncing on the lucrative opportunity of exploiting this Asian beauty obsession. But not only is having white skin vital to attracting male attention – a woman’s complexion also dictates what career opportunities are available to her.

“A white complexion was seen as noble and aristocratic, especially in Southeast Asia, where the sun was always out. Only those rich enough could afford to stay indoors, while peasants baked in the rice fields.”

– Marianne Bray, in “SKIN DEEP: Dying to be White” for CNN.com.

In the past, simple remedies, such as swallowing ground seashell pearls or using chalk-white make-up, were believed and used to lighten a woman’s skin. But they have since been replaced with more drastic (even life-threatening) measures, including toxic skin-lightening creams and skin-bleaching lotions.

“In 2002, newspapers reported that women in Hong Kong were hospitalized for mercury poisoning caused by three brands of whitening cream.”

– Jia-Rui Chong in “Beauty and the Bleach” for Los Angeles Times.

“A growing number of poor Asian women are using illegal products containing toxic chemicals that have left some of them disfigured. Even some government-sanctioned skin-whitening products contain high levels of toxic mercury.”

– Public Radio International.

“While mercury was considered a strong

and effective whitening agent ten to twenty years ago,

in high doses it is lethal – it can lead to convulsions, coma,

and death.”

– Marianne Bray, in “SKIN DEEP: Dying to be White” for CNN.com.

Skin-lightening product manufacturers are quick to defend their merchandise, claiming that their “secret formulas” and “100 percent natural ingredients” don’t contain any mercury, and are simply “original Asian beauty secrets.” Even men face the pressures to have a fair complexion.

Who’s more “beautiful”?

The Chinese Celebrity Today…

Gong Li (Shenyang, China)

Zhang Ziyi (Beijing, China) Lucy Liu (NY, U.S.)

Lucy Liu (NY, U.S.)

Part IV:

Plastic Surgery

Museum Exhibit: Surgical tools and devices.

Natural Asian features ▪ small, slanty eyes ▪ flat nose ▪ yellow skin ▪ high cheek bones ▪ broad, flat face are believed to exemplify negative behavioral characteristics ▪ dullness ▪ passivity ▪ lack emotion

while large, open eyes, and a refined nose are believed to show openness, creativity, and sociability.

Top 3 Procedures Sought by Asian American Women

EYELID SURGERY Goal: Double eyelids, for

wider-looking eyes. BREAST ENHANCEMENT Goal: C-cups seen as the ideal.

NOSE RESHAPING Goal: Nose bridge

heightening and/or tip refinement.

Jaw-slimming / reduction is also common.

Two 22-year-old twins, both students from Nanning. Procedures undergone: Nose refinement, double eyelid, V-line

jaw, Botox, laser treatment.

26-year-old Liu Yisong is a dance teacher from Chengdu. Procedures undergone: Nose refinement, double eyelid, V-line

jaw, collagen injections.

After her pregnancy, Julie, a 29-year-old woman from Changsha, struggled with weight gain and breast atrophy.

Procedures undergone: Breast reconstruction, liposuction, Artecoll (a permanent soft tissue filler) injections, IPL skin

treatment.

Unidentified woman, before and after surgery.

56-year-old woman from Sichuan. Procedures undergone: Wrinkle treatment,

age spot removal, sagging skin reduction, nose refinement.

Battling

Age…

“It’s no secret K-pop has spiked in popularity in recent years. […]

However, even as countries around the world are reveling in the music of girl and boy bands like Girls’ Generation, 2NE1 and Big Bang, some Koreans internally are worried that K-pop may be encouraging the growth of another trend: teen plastic surgery. […]

Just a decade or so ago, the majority of Koreans receiving plastic surgery were in their 20s and 30s. But that majority appears to be shrinking as more teenagers go under the knife—so much so that, in 2011, South Korea’s Ministry of Education issued a booklet to warn high school students about “plastic surgery syndrome.” – Seunghwa Madeleine Han in “Pretty in

Plastic – K-Pop and Korea’s Plastic Surgery Boom” for KoreanAM Magazine.

Jun Ji Hyun, actress and model from South Korea.

Rumored procedures: Nose refinement, double eyelid, mole

removal.

Stephanie Young Hwang (aka Tiffany SNSD), Korean singer.

Rumored procedures: Nose refinement, double eyelid, skin

smoothing.

Cho Kyuhyun, member of Super Junior.

Admitted procedures: Nose refinement, double eyelid.

Kim Sung-kyu, singer and dancer from South Korea.

Rumored procedures: Nose refinement.

Julie Chen’s Story We first knew Julie Chen as a news anchor for shows such as CBS Morning News and The Early Show. But since her humble beginnings as a CBS intern, Chen can certainly now add some other titles to her career: TV personality (The Talk and Big Brother), CBS producer, mother… and, most recently, spokesperson for Asian American women.

The “secret” Chen is referring to is her decision to undergo double eyelid surgery in hopes of looking less “disinterested and bored.” Though she knew that the choice was a denial of her heritage and pained her family, the advice of an agent had struck home: “You're good at what you do. And if you get this plastic surgery done, you're going straight to the top.”

“ My secret dates back to -- my heart is racing -- it dates back to when I was 25 years old and I was working as a local news reporter in Dayton, Ohio. I asked my news director over the holidays, 'If anchors want to take vacations, could I fill in?' And he said, ‘You will never be on this anchor desk, because you're Chinese.’ ”

– Julie Chen, beginning her emotional confession on the September 11, 2013 episode of The Talk.

Why Do They Do It? Convenient Aesthetics

No need for elaborate make-up routines.

Social Status Easier to secure job and find love.

Symbolic Capital Western look equated with elitism.

Gender Ideology A woman’s ultimate goal is beauty

Racial Ideology Asian features associated with dullness, passivity, lack of emotion.

Physician Reinforcement Asian features are an “abnormal medical condition.”

Cultural Reinforcement A woman’s identity is defined by her appearance.

…is it worth it?

1 DAY AFTER SURGERY

3 DAYS AFTER

2 WEEKS LATER

Asian American women who haven’t had plastic surgery instead spend hours regularly applying layers of make-up to give the same semblance of not having slanted eyes. In its 2010 article “Changing Faces”, TIMES talks to eighteen-year-old Saeko Kimura, who tells of the attention and hostess position she got after applying a strip of glue to her eyelids to make them appear larger and wider. “Men noticed me. I became outgoing. Suddenly, I had a life.” Undergoing surgery, to make the look permanent, would eliminate her need to rely on glue.

Beauty at All Costs So how far are Asian women willing to go such that they can become ultimate beauties? It appears that whether the cost be pain or even death, nothing will prevent them from striving for physical, aesthetic perfection – the assumed gateway to social acceptance and prestige.

Wang Bei,

a popular contestant on Super Girl (China’s version of American Idol),

died on November 10, 2010.

The show was promptly cancelled after her death.

Though the local health bureau first reported that she’d passed due to an

“anesthetic accident”,

it was later found that Bei had

suffocated on her own blood.

Details of the Tragedy

“In the morning of November 15, both Wang Bei and her mother walked in a plastic surgery hospital in Wuhan for facial feminization surgeries, gridding of the facial bones (cheek bone and mandibular angle). The two of them were to be operated one after another, Wang Bei was first. Accident happened during supposedly the simple procedure. During the mandibular angle surgery, surgeon’s improper operation caused bleeding of her lower jaw, and blood then flowed though her throat into her trachea, caused suffocation. Wang was then secretly transferred to Wuhan 161 Hospital for emergency rescue, but unfortunately Wang Bei passed away in the afternoon.”

– “Female star dies in plastic surgery accident”, ChinaHush.com.

Thank You for Attending.