Routine

I. Eyes

I know the creases disappear when I cry at night. I’m rudely awakened by the glaring sunlight that streams through the curtains.

The mirror greets me with an accusatory pair of swollen, mono lidded eyes on a face I don’t recognise. How dare you feel like crap and look like it too. I grab the tape.

I don’t expect the plastic, sticky tape to feel comfortable on my eyelid. Some brands have rather sharp edges that poke the insides of my eye. But this batch is alright. The ribbed surface touches my fingers as I apply it to where I wish the crease was. I poke the crease in, and it folds. I blink to check. The crease is there - a nice, clean, curve.

After I’ve fixed the issue, I brush my teeth. I stare at the clean, white, porcelain sink while I do. My toothbrush decided to run out of battery, but I was nearly done anyway. I stop, and spit out the yellowed toothpaste from my half-brushed teeth.

II. Skin

I wash my face, moisturize and slather on sunscreen. I’m going to be at home all day, but you never know how sneaky those UV rays may be. We’re not white, but we like white. I benefit from that.

白看起来比较干净
She’s fairer than Nadya; that’s saying something!
Nadya’s skin is whiter than a sheet of A4 paper

They say the fetishization of fair skin is racist. I’ve tried to tan but I just end up getting burnt. My skin gets all red, dry and crackly. So white skin it is. My skin is a badge of pride, an emblem that says, hey, I’m Asian! It’s reductionist, I know. Not all Asians have fair skin. But I polish that badge every morning.

I’ve always taken pride and comfort in being Asian. I love Crazy Rich Asians, I binge WongFu Productions and I would repost that infographic on hate crimes against Asian Americans on Instagram without a second thought. I’m very proud to be Singaporean; especially now. Wonder if they’d ask me about how we’re handling the COVID situation today.

III. Mouth

 
I climb down the stairs in my pajama pants. I’m wearing a normal T-shirt, that’s all that matters. I hope I don’t look too dead. I grab a small bowl and scoop some yoghurt into it, topping it off with some fruits and granola. I’m meeting a bunch of students from the Chinese Students Association this morning.

I walk past the dining table to my laptop. A plate of baos are left on that table, drying up in the cold, air-conditioned air.

“Please introduce yourself with your name, your class, your concentration… and which part of China you are from or related to.”

“I’m from Singapore… I know I’m Chinese, and I’m uh...”

I can’t answer the question. Interactions over Zoom are cold. It’s hard to tell what people are thinking. Most of them aren’t even looking into the camera, maybe some are on their phones. I know how easy it is to hide your phone from the camera. Our leader nonchalantly moves the conversation along, and I get some questions about Singapore. I get to talk about our really low COVID cases.

I think they are thinking that I’m an uncultured piece of person. Maybe they aren’t thinking that. Maybe I’m thinking that and projecting it onto them. Their accents were way more Americanized than mine, but I couldn’t tell them where I was from.

I asked my Dad that question later that night. The question “where are we from” sounds so stupid, so I immediately follow up with “I mean I know Gong-gong immigrated to Malaysia from China but from which part?” As if it made a difference.

Baba smiled at me in a semi-puzzled but genuinely happy way. We’re from Guangdong, he says. I stare blankly, and he gets the hint that my knowledge of the great Middle Kingdom is as shitty as my Geography. He searches up Google maps and does a little orientation for me - here’s Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Guangdong… so we’re above Hong Kong, to the right there’s Taiwan…

Baba tells me that if I have the time in the future, a trip to China won’t hurt. Maybe I should do an internship there or something.

Do I need to spend time in China to be from there?

I tell my mum that I figured out which part of China we’re from. (Or, at least, Dad’s family. Mum’s family has been in Indonesia for a couple of generations). She laughs and asks me where. I say “Guangdong” but the enunciation doesn’t come out right. The word sounds so wrong in my mouth.

Guangdong says more about the colour of my skin than Singapore, Jakarta or even Penang would, but somehow it doesn’t really say anything about me.

IV. Throat

“I protested that this was not my culture. That I didn’t feel that Chinese… But I was told that it was my culture… You will be who you are, because the government will view you and lock you into the colour of your skin.”
Li Shengwu, World University Debating Championships, 2010

In this speech opposing the banning of cosmetic procedures to change one’s racial appearance, Shengwu famously introduces an anecdote of how he felt forced to learn a language that he doesn’t identify with.

I joke that I can’t do languages. I speak Indonesian like a Chinese person and Chinese like a white person. It was something I had always accepted. Don’t worry that you’re not great at Chinese, you make it up to your Asian family by being quite good at Math.

Truth is that I’m not that good at math, or even if I was, that wasn’t enough. It’s important for people from this part of the world who intend to break into the international business world to be able to speak and communicate well. Apparently that doesn’t come naturally to us.

I yelled myself hoarse at my last debate tournament. I think I had a throat infection or something, but I wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to speak at Singaporean nationals. I doubt the Ivies would take a throat infection as an excuse. There was a motion that revolved around themes of national pride and identity. We won, but none of our arguments directly engaged with that theme. My visibly frustrated coach paced around whilst giving us feedback. “What does it mean to be a citizen of a country? What does it mean to belong to a culture or a group of people?”

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. It wasn’t just because my throat was dying. Intellectually, I knew the arguments for stuff like why it’s important to have and create strong national pride. But I didn’t know how to understand them. I’m Singaporean because that’s the passport I currently hold. I’m Singaporean because I live here. My parents came here from neighbouring countries out of chance. I could’ve just as easily been born somewhere else.

It’s hard to openly talk about not feeling Singaporean enough. Of course she can’t make those arguments, look at her school uniform. The word “international” that’s embroidered on my school shirt seems to cower in shame, a privileged place of refuge for those stuck in this no man’s land.

As I muted my microphone and mentally gawked at myself for not knowing that simple answer during that Zoom call, I realized that I was no longer in that place of refuge. That I needed to search out new spaces, and to defend my right to be in those spaces. Guangdong mattered to me because it was my final proof of being Chinese.

A couple of years ago, my school made the finals of secondary school nationals. I had to speak in front of a microphone to an audience, and it was probably the first time many people in the debating circuit were hearing the voice of this international school speaker that people have been talking about. I deliver my speech, and my distinct accent ricochets all too clearly from the walls of the hall.

White girl in Asian body ah this one.

V. Body

It’s early in the evening. I turn on the air conditioning and shuffle barefoot on the polished wooden floor. I prop up my laptop on a piano bench. It’s not the gym, but it’ll do. I grab my shoes.

I took off my shoes and stepped barefoot on a slightly dusty black and white tiled floor. The tiles warm my feet, and the hot and arid Penang air caresses my cheeks. Baba handed me some oranges to go in and 拜年. I hadn’t seen Gong-gong and Ah-ma in slightly over a year.

As soon as I enter my relatives’ line of sight, I can feel their eyes widen.

哇，俐怡减肥了！身材苗条了！

Apparently nothing impresses your relatives during Chinese New Year more than topping your class or, better yet, losing weight.

I stuck with a semi-regular routine of exercising after my weight loss. I didn’t want to find out what the reaction would be if I grew back into my chubby frame. There was a time when every burpee, plank jack or set of mountain climbers that pushed the oxygen out of my lungs was a reminder of what’ll happen to my body if I don’t, a punishment for my metabolism that didn’t seem to be able to keep up with other Asians.

Today I choose to forgo the old hours of intense cardio. I scroll through my Instagram “saved” page to pick a workout. None of them are Asian, but the ladies on this page have physiques that are more attainable to me than the straight-up-really-skinny physique that seems so popular back home. I grab my dumbbells and hit play on my workout playlist; it’s Megan Thee Stallion.

Body-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody
Ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody (mwah)

The weights amplify the force of gravity, dragging my arms down towards the floor. My arms resist that force and my shoulders roll back away from my ears. There’s something really empowering about strength training.

Are good Chinese girls supposed to be muscular?

VI. Feet 

I take off my shoes after the workout. My feet look gross and sweaty, but they got the job done. I breathed heavily.

Ages ago, it was Chinese tradition for women to get their feet bound. When I first heard about the foot binding practice, I actually thought it sounded benign. What’s wrong about wrapping cloth over your feet? It might be comfortable. I soon learnt that it was literally anything but. My ancestors had their bones snapped and toes forcefully folded in as layers of bandages were wrapped around their now permanently deformed feet to prevent blood from gushing out too violently. Apparently it was for women to be unable to run away from their husbands.

It’s unfair for me to disproportionately critique Chinese culture for being sexist. History as a whole is sexist. You can’t fall in love with a culture or a place by falling in love with its history or politics, but it’s so easy to fall out of love because of it.

To be fair, it was precisely because our cultures hold STEM subjects in such high regard that I didn’t notice being a woman would be a barrier in that field until much later on. Everyone around me was always supportive of that field. Girls are encouraged to be doctors, lawyers or engineers to make their parents happy. It’s not the best, but it’s probably better than being told to be a babymaker.

I take a towel and dab the sweat from my burning hot, beet-red face. It’s the same red that warns me very effectively when the alcohol concentration in my bloodstream threatens to intoxicate my body.

I don’t love my Asian flush. But I try to understand how it might actually help. It helps that Asian flush is something I can actually wrap my head around at a molecular level.

I climb down the stairs for dinner and see a huge metal pot simmering on the stovetop. I immediately know what’s inside.

“Ma, hari ini makan sop buntut?”

“Iya.”

“Okay, I’ll scoop some for everyone?”

“Yes please”

I take the heavy metal ladle and scoop out chunks of oxtail, carrots and potatoes for everyone. It smells so good. The heat of the soup almost scalds my hands as I carry the almost-too-thin porcelain bowls to the dining table. I add a hearty serving of sambal, a squeeze of lime and too many scoops of deep fried shallots to my bowl.

“Bon appetit!”

“Enjoy it. You won’t get this kind of food in Providence.”

VII. Mind

The progressive feminist in me continues to find reasons to poke at my own culture. It also continues to find good reasons to condemn the erasure of culture. But real life isn’t a debate where race and culture is all good or all bad, or whether we should change everything or change nothing. It’s also more than just East vs West. I could watch that debate that Shengwu spoke in again. I might know more about how skin lightening creams and eyelid tapes can act as an oppressive force of racism or a counter-intuitive weapon against it, but I still wouldn’t know what to do when I find myself fiddling with the eyelid tape again tomorrow morning.

When I was younger, my mum told me that one day,  I’ll get exposed to western beauty standards. That I’d want shiny blonde hair and big, sunken blue eyes. It didn’t register in my head - my mum didn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes but I still thought that she was the most beautiful person I knew. But she has big, beautiful eyes with perfectly defined double eyelids. She’s also Chinese, but Chinese Indonesian - which means there’s probably some other genes mixed up in there. Those “other genes” are probably what gives her those eyes.

I wish I had those eyes.

What are you expecting, that people will see your eyelids, realize you’re not fully Chinese, excuse your terrible Chinese and realize you have Indonesian/ Malaysian heritage even though you can barely speak those languages?  The monster in the shape of a devil's advocate gesticulates wildly in my head.

Fair enough.

I still wish I had those eyes. Perhaps I wish I didn’t think so much about these things, but it’s 2:30am and I’m alone with my thoughts. Who asked you to go to college a whole timezone away?

My left eye now has a wider, more permanent crease. I now use the tape mainly for my right eye. I say it’s for balance, that it wouldn’t look nice if one eyelid is creased and one isn’t. It’s probably best to tell myself that symmetry is all that I’m chasing.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, the monster in my head whispers again, as I press my face against the damp fur of my big brown teddy bear, holding my plushie tightly until I finally fall asleep.