Skin Deep

I have quite a few girly weaknesses: shoes, handbags, boys who tell me I'm pretty... But as I get older, I find myself spending more money on something that directly feeds into my vanity: skin care.

A trip to Sephora could easily take a couple of hours. The store used to be overwhelming to me, but with the help of a good friend who used to work there (and who is an Asian girl with radiant skin), I got a start in figuring out which product lines are my favorite. (Caudalie, DDF, and Philosophy) I now thoroughly enjoy going up and down the aisles, testing out the countless cremes, scrubs, and sprays. I am perfectly aware that teams of people are being paid a whole lot of money to sucker me into shelling out $48 for 1.7 ounces of anti-aging eye cream with "biospheric complex," but somehow I keep coming back and adding more to my arsenal of glycolic acid, aloe vera, willow bark, grape water, and who knows what else. I've even convinced myself that all of this stuff really works.

Maybe it does. I will say that my skin is pretty nice. I rarely get any acne (though this particularly stressful month has been an exception, which explains my most recent Sephora splurge), and I have yet to develop crow's feet around my eyes. But that probably has more to do with genetics than anything I'm spending money on. Plus, as I'm constantly being told, Asian women just naturally age better. Ha.

I think that the notion that Asian women look young has more to do with projected assumptions about Asian femininity than anything actual about how they age. But still, there is definitely a special relationship that Asian women have with their skin care. (And because I like to blame a lot of things about myself on the fact that I'm Asian, I'm going to say that this is the root of my newfound weakness.) I have very early memories of the older women in my family marveling at my fair complexion. (Having grown up in a country where people prefer to be tan, I never understood this.) My mother didn't allow me to wear makeup when I was a teenager, but she always reminded me to wear sunscreen. (With my sun spots and freckles, I now wish I was better about listening to her.) I've often witnessed my aunt (who looks at least 15 years younger than her age) going to the cosmetics counters at Macy's and selecting her favorite top-shelf face cremes. (That was one thing she never hesitated to pay full price for.) Just as I grew up aware that my family eats rice for dinner every day, I grew up aware that women need to take care of their skin.

I'm sure this isn't an Asian-specific experience. All women, regardless of ethnicity, are pressured to preserve their youthful looks. That's why we have a multi-billion dollar beauty industry. But one thing I've noticed is there is this pervasive idea that Asian skin is different from any other kind, and that Asian countries somehow hold the secrets to beautiful skin. A google search for "Asian skin care" pulls up loads of articles like THIS ONE, which declares, "It is not an accident that Japanese women have beautiful skin." Other Asian folks also seem to believe that the Japanese know skin care best. When I went to Japan with my family, among the things that the Chinese tour tried to trap us into buying were sake, kimonos, and skin care products. I once went to Sephora with a group of friends (one Chinese, one Vietnamese, one half Chinese/half Japanese), and the sales girl (who was white) recommended a product line, Boscia, specifically because it's made in Japan, where, she claimed, the quality standards are way stricter than in the U.S. (We nodded and sighed, "Ahh...")

So maybe there's a sociological study that could be done about Asian women and skin care. (Actually, I'm sure there's been one already.) Chris Rock's documentary, Good Hair, investigates the relationship that African American women have with their hair: the time and money they spend on it, the industry that's built around it, the notions of beauty that it reflects and perpetuates. In a writing class I used to teach, I assigned an essay by bell hooks called "Straightening our Hair," which argues that while the practice of hair straightening is clearly a product of internalized white supremacy, it has also become a sort of cultural heritage and form of bonding among black women: a heritage that gets dismantled when the practice gets removed from the kitchens in black households to the shelves of white corporations. A film about Asian women and skin could feature different, but still related, social issues. It could raise the question of whether skin care products are marketed to Asian women in a way that reflects either Orientalist notions of beauty or white notions of beauty. (At the same time that Asian women often pride themselves for their Asian skin, there's also a huge market for skin whitening products in Asia.) The film could also trace ad campaigns of cosmetic companies like Shiseido and dissect their cultural implications. The pic above is a vintage ad from Shiseido, a Japanese company, that targets Chinese women but depicts a white woman in its picture. The film could even try to take a scientific angle and investigate whether there's any truth to the idea that Asian genes or Asian cultural habits hold the secrets to good skin.

I might just have to get on this project.

Asian Sistas at the Olympics

So maybe there aren't very many Asian Girl Professors in the world, but there certainly seems to be a lot of world class Asian Girl Figure Skaters! Last night's Ladies' short program showcased several Asian women who seriously rocked the ice.

Let's start with South Korean superstar Kim Yu-Na (pictured). Holy crap, this woman is something else. She's a powerhouse athlete, a charismatic performer, AND she's friggin' gorgeous. And I love that she chose to channel James Bond in her program. She is, hands down, the best figure skater in the world right now, but let's not forget the other stars of the night: Japan's Mao Asada, who is poised to be Kim's toughest competitor and was the only skater last night to do a triple axel, also nailed her program. And the truly adorable Mirai Nagasu did the United States proud, delivering a clean performance that landed her 6th place. The 16-year-old, who gave herself a nosebleed spinning herself so hard, is definitely one to watch in future Olympic games.

Of course, these women (and as much as I like using the word "Girl" in this blog, I do appreciate that the commentators are calling them "women") aren't the first Asian women to make it to the Olympics. I was a huge fan of Kristi Yamaguchi growing up, and up until last night I was convinced that I would never be interested in figure skating or the Olympics again now that Michelle Kwan is no longer competing. The last couple of decades also produced Chen Lu (Olympic bronze medalist and the first figure skater to ever medal at the Olympics for China), Midori Ito (Olympic silver medalist and first woman to land a triple/triple combination and triple axel in competition) and Yuka Sato (world champion who competed in the Olympics twice). But this year perhaps marks the first that could feature an all-Asian podium. And though I'm rooting for Joannie Rochette, the Canadian skater who admirably delivered a solid performance in spite of the fact that her mother just passed away a few days ago, seeing my Asian sistas take gold, silver and bronze would be pretty fantastic.

It is worth noting, of course, that it's not just in women's figure skating that we've been seeing serious Asian representation. Daisuke Takahashi took the silver in the men's competition. (Japan's team has been generally solid-- The country was able to secure three slots for the women's and men's competitions, and all of their competitors are landing in the top 10.) Chinese-Canadian Patrick Chan got 5th place. In pairs, Chinese teams Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo and Pang Qing/Tong Jian took gold and silver. And as a side, we'd might as well include speed skating in this discussion, given that it's a sport that has already featured an all-Asian podium this year (or almost all-Asian, we wanna get technical about Apolo Anton Ohno and J.R. Celski's hapa-ness). Asians are dominating the ice. Ooh, yellow terror, bring it on.

So why do Asians appear to be doing so well in skating? The phenomenon is a bit of a puzzle to me. (Given that we see very few Asians in any of the other winter sports, it's almost as if figure skating is the equivalent of my high school's badminton team. I guess that makes speed skating the tennis team.) Articles like THIS ONE attribute to the success of Asian folks in figure skating to the fact that they are small and light, "like nymphs" (quote brought to you by Frank Carroll, who coached Michelle Kwan and is currently coaching Mirai Nagasu) and are products of Hardass Asian Parenting (a term coined by the peeps over at DISGRASIAN, who like to trace results of this parenting strategy). It's too bad my parents weren't bigger hardasses. Maybe I could have been an Olympic figure skater. Damn American permissiveness and "self esteem."

Maybe Asians in Olympic Figure Skating could be a research topic someone could take up. Too bad I haven't taken it up, otherwise my spending my evenings watching the Olympics and writing about it could be justified as "working on my dissertation."

Asian Girl Professors Everywhere

I TA-ed for an Asian Girl Professor (that is, a young-ish Asian American female professor) who told me that it is really really hard to become an Asian Girl Professor. Asian American women are the least likely to finish their PhD programs, least likely to get hired, least likely to get promoted, least likely to get tenured, least likely to get endowed chairs, etc...

I do not know if this is true. I imagine there must be some research done on attrition rates in higher education and the demographics of university educators that might confirm this, but I'll let people who specialize in that sort of thing dig that out. True or not, this depressing statistic certainly feels true. I've had many White Dude Professors. And White Women Professors. But until I took a seminar with a South Asian woman who at the time was a junior faculty member a few years ago, I had never been taught by an Asian woman.

I knew that Asian female professors existed in my undergraduate institution. And I see them where I am attending graduate school. But I am also aware of the fact that both schools belong to a university system in which there is such a thing as Ethnic Studies and/or Asian American Studies. Indeed, all the professors I know who happen to be Asian American (including the one who warned me of how difficult it is to be an Asian woman in academia) either belong to an Asian American Studies/Ethnic Studies department or are the token Asian American specialist in a department like American Studies or English. In the position that I will be starting in the fall, I will be one of two Asians (the other is a South Asian man who does Postcolonial Studies), and certainly the only Asian woman in the English department. I was hired as an Asian American literature specialist.

So, as one can imagine, in most universities in the U.S., there isn't a need or demand for even that token Asian Americanist. This means that in most universities, there are no avenues through which Asian folks can break into the academy. East Asian Studies might be an exception, but only to a certain degree-- Universities will often have departments devoted to studying China, Japan, Korea, etc. So Asian women may be hired there. Though also, from what I've seen, these departments also hire a lot of white people who specialize in Asian Studies. Aforementioned Asian Girl Professor, for example, was the first Filipina to be hired as a tenure-track professor specializing in the Philippines. Prior to her, folks doing work on the Philippines have been white men. (Damn colonialism.) So yes, if you are Asian and American, finding a place in academia can be tricky. There are some who manage to make it into the profession without doing anything Asian or Asian American related-- I know one young-ish Asian American professor who does Medieval Studies, for example. But if universities won't hire Asian folks as experts of Asian history and culture, I imagine they would be even less inclined to hire them as experts of white history and culture. Racism sucks.

Aside from these institutional factors, Asian women also have to deal with the day-to-day experiences of being, well, Asian women. It's not only my mother who says that I look like a little girl pretending to be a professor. Colleagues, professors, even my students often view me in that way. A classmate of mine, a white woman who is only a few years older than me, used to always comment on my small stature and pat me on the head. Students will often ask me how old I am. (I doubt they'll ask their Old White Dude Professor the same question.) At a recent job interview, one faculty member mistook me for an undergraduate. Here's the funny thing, though-- I actually don't think I look all that young. I see the faint lines forming at the edges of my eyes, the white hairs popping out of my head. I look exactly as one my age should look, I think. I don't dress like a teeny-bopper or talk with a baby voice. So I know that people's tendency to view me as a little girl is a projection of their own internalized notions about Asian women being young and docile or whatever. Orientalism sucks.

I've learned to not get too angry when these things happen, and to just accept them as a fact that I'll just have to deal with and negotiate. Still, I wonder to what extent have I internalized how people seem to view me. I wonder if I've ever underestimated myself or failed to fight for my interest because I felt marked as an Asian girl. And I wonder to what extent I've grown a chip on my shoulder because of it.

Every quarter that I've taught at Yuppie Cowtown U, a school in which a disproportionately large portion of the undergraduate population is Asian American, there has always been at least one student, usually Asian, usually a girl (but sometimes a boy), who comes to my office. She won't ask me questions about the course material, but about my life trajectory. She'll ask me how I decided to major in English, to go to grad school, to become a professor. So I know that at least for her, my being an Asian Girl Professor at the podium, in a position of authority, relaying my expertise, commanding attention, means something, just as my meeting other Asian Girl Professors means something to me.

So I guess that's why I've named this blog Asian Girl Professor-- I know that my breaking into this profession is indebted to the work of Asian women who came before me, and I hope that my making it will also enable other Asian women to do the same.