Lucy Liu – feline beauty or malformed turtle?
- Source: Global Times
- [21:24 November 15 2009]
- Comments
"Don't Westerners have good taste? Or can't they get any good-looking women? Some of my friends say that if they want to date a Western guy they should just uglify themselves.''
Aha. This was familiar territory. I'd been down this road several times before with former co-workers in Shenzhen as well as Hong Kong and it invariably led to what I have come to call "The Lucy Liu Debate'' and just what constitutes beauty.
Completely random and unscientific research on my part has found that 99.99 percent of the 1.3 billion Chinese think juicy Lucy is a complete skank and can't fathom her popularity. She's a malformed drooling turtle. Even worse, she's a freckled malformed drooling turtle.
In China, the ubiquitous beauty advertisements promise flawless, vampire white skin and make it clear that freckles and a tan are akin to leprosy. Freckled Lucy also sports a healthy tan. And she's also slightly cross-eyed – another bummer on the beauty scale.
"Wait a minute,'' I said. "Basically you're talking about Lucy Liu types, right?''
"Yes! Yes! She's sooo ugly! I hate her. I cannot believe how famous she's become.''
"I kind of like her freckles,'' I mused. "Most Americans think freckles are cute.''
C's tan- and freckle-free face was aghast. Then she mentioned the crossed eyes.
"Also cute. Endearing almost,'' I rhapsodized, before adding hastily, "but you're much more so, of course.''
By this time we were on the Shenzhen subway heading back to our apartment. The debate raged on as fellow passengers stared – but mostly at the floor out of embarrassed politeness in the face of the foolish mixed-race couple who were obviously airing some tawdry laundry in public.
"I cannot believe why she is famous,'' she repeated. "Most foreigners are fools when it comes to beauty – except for you, most of the time.'' Then she noticed something. We'd been so wrapped up in the Great Lucy Brouhaha that we'd boarded the wrong train.
"Stupid ugly Lucy Liu!'' C fumed as we got off at the next stop to double back. "It's all her fault."
The author is a copy editor at the Global Times. average_guy26@yahoo.com
