Amy Adoyzie

It’s tragic. The depths in which we abhor our own skin, our bodies, the flesh which we mold from the inside-out. We take tiny metal prongs, press them against our skin to yank out tiny unwanted hairs from our faces. We slather on wide strips of wax, hot glue on flesh, and hope to God that if we rip it away quickly enough the stinging won’t be as severe. Or, like myself, disconcerted with the dark fuzz on my upper lip, fearing that I might out-mustache a future crush, I got my lil stache threaded, pulled out row by row by a woman and a looped piece of thread. It hurt, but I guess it was worth it for all those hordes of men who want some of this. Right? I mean, all of them lined up outside my home and office in Chittagong. That’s who we do it for, isn’t it? Not so much for ourselves, but for those who have to look at us, because their eyes and inherent judgment always means more than we think it would.

Lots of readers stumble upon this blog through various search queries, most of them are totally odd and hilarious. The top query that brings people here as been, obviously, “amy adoyzie.” But disconcertingly enough, two of the top five queries have to do with eyelids, per this post.
It was written almost two years ago when I used to live in Huarong, PRC. As there was nothing much to do in rural China, I’d go to the one-kuai shop (kinda like the 99 cents store) and peruse their various cheap offerings. On this particular day, I went home with a small package of eyelid stickers that Asian folks wear to give the appearance of the much coveted “fold.” To have eyes that belied their chinky selves, to make them look bigger, more western.
Number 2 and 4 of the all time queries that bring folks to my blog are:

All of this from one silly post. It keeps getting more unsettling. Just recently these queries showed up:

All over Asia-east, southeast, south-the majority of women share a common cosmetic obsession: white skin. A leftover from colonialism, a result of mass-media brainwashing, steeped in classist socialization about how dark-skin folks are working-class laborers and fair-skin people pop white collars- but ultimately it’s mired in self-hate. It’s the bleaching of one’s skin, the very shell of who we are, blanched until all of our color, our histories, our struggles fade to turn into a homogeneous pale mass/mess. It is too often that I have to remind students, and my own mother, that they are not too dark, that their skin tone is deep with color. That their skin is their skin, that they shouldn’t let a corporation who profits on self-hate tell them otherwise.
I’m equally confounded by the legions of east Asians who want to cut their eyelids. Ones’ eyes, even if they are small and slanted, are said to be the windows to one’s soul. And you want to take a machete to it? Slice it open at the top to ostensibly let in more light?
Don’t you know that the light comes from within?

To whomever stumbled upon my blog with the following query, thanks for allowing me a hopeful moment that we are not always mired in self-hate.