cosmetic surgery

The start of my rant for the day is how I feel about Blepharoplasty, or the cut of the eyelid to create "the crease". If you aren't familiar with this type of cosmetic surgery, it's usually, from what I've heard (although I'm no expert), asian women who want their eyes to be more like "white eyes". Personally, I think this is the worst surgery anyone could ever do. In fact, I want the opposite. I always tell my asian friends that I envy there smooth, perfect eyelids and which mine were more like that instead of the sunken hollows my eyes are placed in. Of course, mostly everyone wants to look the opposite of how they do. If you have curly hair, you want straight (ie.). It just makes me think of the thousands of asian girls who are becoming more and more "westernized". It makes me sad. What if, one day, the cultural customs and differences that I love so much, are gone and we're all the same, all over the world. I want to go to the countries and yell at them. "This is what makes you who you are. don't lose it!" I still remember a friend making fun of me when she saw how into asian culture I was saying, "you have no culture of your own so you just have to steal ours". Of course she was joking but I will never forget it. What is it to be white anyway? I DON'T have my own culture. I always hear of people complaining when someone asks "Where are you from?" The politically correct question being "what is your background or ethnicity?" and they answer Canada or something smart-assed like that. When people ask me what my background is, what do I say? What can I say other than "Canadian" or "white". I used to lie to people in younger years. They'd hear my last name and ask me what it was. I gave out German, Dutch, whatever. Of course now I'm going to tell the truth. I say I'm a British Mutt (mixture of English, etc.) I really don't even know how correct that is though. As far as I know, both sides of my family have been in Canada since the pioneer days. Who knows where from before? Middle eastern Europe, I guess. So, yeah.... I have no culture that is mine alone. At times, I feel very left out or like I've been ripped off in the cultural lottery. Almost all of my friends and even my boyfriend, to some degree, have the same culture as me AND this separate thing that they have at home. My boyfriend is Chinese. My good friend Geena is Korean. I have "brown" firiends, filipino friends, native friends, black friends, etc. Even most of my white friends have their own. Jeannie and Courtney are Ukrainian. All of these backgrounds come with traditions different from the ones we share. Different foods, different traditions and customs. No fair!
Which brings me to racism. You hear people complain all the time about what they endure because of being a minority. I have probably had more racism directed towards me because I'm a typical white girl. I've never met these people before but they hate me because, in their eyes, I think I'm better than they are. The opposite is true. I would love to switch.
I guess this all comes from my desperate, lifelong desire to be "different".
BUT ~As John Lennon said, "there's nothing that can be done that hasn't been done before".

For another side of the things I've mentioned head to alllooksame.com and read what this girl has to say. It's very interesting (and well written unlike my non-sequatorial jumble).

(originally posted to my geocities website)