Hey Kids!
This is something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while, but with the coming of summer and the surge in the amount of girls wearing tshirts and short(ish) shorts, this has really come to my attention.
Prepare yourselves, Western women (and men) for some shocking, radical and…earth breaking news.
Female body hair is optional.
[Shock, horror, women begin to hyperventilate and pass out at their desks, men walk away in stoic silence to mull things over in a faraway land. In the background, a child begins to weep piteously at this unknown assailant and its mother can offer no comfort because she is currently slumped over the computer with her nose pressing down on the keyboard jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj]
That’s right, for you who have not succumbed to the above. Here in China it is actually pretty common for women to simply let their natural body hair…be all, well natural. Why is this? Some may argue that it’s because Chinese simply have less body hair than their Western counterparts and therefore it is a non-issue because they didn’t have any to begin with.
Well, just like everything there is natural variation. True, on average, Han Chinese people naturally have less body hair than Westerners, but that doesn’t mean that every Chinese woman walks around with all areas of her body a smooth as the sale of donkey meat to ignorant tourists (which is to say, very.)
I can say this, because I have taken many a yoga class during my time here and let me just say I was enlightened in more ways than one during the Salute to the Sun pose.
I have to say that I found that tuft of black hair under a demure woman’s arm, and the shadowy look to the calf in those rolled-up jeans at first confronting, then fascinating and finally enviable (always with the jeans and exercise, what is with that?).
Here I am, wasting precious time with a bar of soap and a sharp object in my hand veritably hacking at my body hair to fit in with a societal norm which was pressed onto me at the unquestioning age of 12 and which I have been following ever since.
Well, I say, it’s unfair!
I’ll tell you why women cringe, men snigger or girls blush when they see hair anywhere but on a female’s head (although, granted sometimes even even that hair isn’t completely real.)
Because the treatment of body hair is based on cultural practice. Why are 11, 12 and 13 years old girls in the West shamed and handed a razor quietly by their mothers? Because some high class snobs thought that 15th Century french prostitutes were simply delightful to emulate. (And, of course because shaving companies enjoy making a profit.)
Well, it seems those french ladies didn’t make it to China. And those shaving companies were not exactly allowed into China until recently. Now, I know as China rapidly urbanises and globalises that there will be more of this Western cultural influence putting pressure onto Chinese women to shave (and, of course, for Chinese men to demand that it be thus) but for the time being I am so happy that a woman is allowed to choose what she does with her own body hair. That, like makeup, it is optional and can be adhered to in various degrees of ‘giving a shit’.
I’m just sad that my cultural programming doesn’t include an easy ‘opt-out’ function.
It’s summer, and as I rip open my packet of razors sent to me from home because they didn’t have any going for cheap in China, I shed a tear. Caught in thoughts of my Chinese friends outside playing badminton in short(ish) shorts, not even thinking about the shadow on their legs or the extra keratin under their arms.
Getting my point across Photo: Emccall 2014
Soaring Red Bucket 