In America, a huge part of how people perceive you is how you look. As MJ always reminds me, "gotta look nice." It is unfortunately a fact of life that we go for physical beauty rather than inner beauty, and it is true in Asian societies as well, to the extent that there are some interesting terms in each language for this behavior: In Chinese it's called an "Association of Appearances,"外貌协会 in Japanese it's called "eating someone based on their face," and I haven't heard a catchy term in Korean yet but it probably exists. So many make changes to their clothes, their bodies, their eyebrows, their noses, their teeth, their chests, and especially.....the big one, the face. Most people, the first impression they get of someone, is their face. And even if it's not the first thing you see, you'll eventually want to see it.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't "look nice" for most of my life, and still don't necessarily "look nice." The paradox is, though, I still do judge people by their outer appearance, so even though only some people have the best appearances, all of us judge others by appearance. The math doesn't add up; it's not like people who don't look nice don't care about appearance at all and look for other characteristics, so there's a select portion of the population that is left out in the lurch in the attention department. I always wondered what it'd be like to join the opposite of an "Association of Appearances," (Maybe the Association of No Appearance?) or in Japanese, the "Ugly-eaters," and share our stories about how we're neglected by others, passed over as potential romantic partners, eyes meet with someone else at a party but they instantly look away, etc. On the other hand, it's very liberating not having to worry about my appearance knowing I'm not going to make it to Brad Pitt level anyway; less fuss to worry about and less clothes to have to wear. I'm also lucky enough to have a job that doesn't care how I look at the job, and in America resumes don't have the applicant's picture on the top right corner like many Asian countries require.
When MJ and I have a child, I wish the child to be strong and healthy of course, and more intelligent than me and learn from my mistakes as a child/ teen/ even now, but I also want them to look nice. It's not for me necessarily, like I want to look nice in a family photo or have a "trophy child" or something, but I know how much harder life is in life when you don't look as nice as other kids, and how you can easily fall into the "loser group" or get neglected and have trouble getting someone one likes to like back. ("Like back!") Self-confidence and self-esteem and a ton of emotional/ psychological factors are related to appearance. I keep wanting to say that "not looking nice" people are the ones who are discriminated against constantly, they're the real victims of discrimination in America and around the world. If you're a minority in America and feel discrimination, maybe you won't be the minority somewhere else in the world...but there is no world where you can escape judgement based on appearance. There's really no solution for it and no policy that can force people to hire without considering looks (it's subjective!) but it definitely exists. So I really hope are future child will take after his/her mom (MJ looks very nice!) in that regard, but maybe take after me in.....willingness to donate at blood drives and donate $2 at Whole Foods for charity?
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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