This is a warning: If you have body image issues, you might not want to move to China! I cannot recall the last time I was told I was fat to my face, much less so frequently. A Chinese coworker was walking me through a lesson plan and telling me we could compare me with my students' former teacher, and said something along the lines of, 'Since you are so fat, you could not run so fast, but since so and so is very thin, he could run very fast!' She proceeded to discuss how to plug that example into the grammar being covered in the lesson. When I start teaching a new class the students consistently tell me how tall and fat I am. New acquaintances sometimes tell me the same thing.
I came to China prepared for a less reserved approach to discussing weight. It's the same in many other parts of the world. In some of them telling a person they're fat is a compliment, and fatness can even be a sort of status symbol! (After all, in most of the world being overweight is tied to prosperity and upper class jobs, not poverty and un or under-employment.) Here it's not that at all. (For a good survey of the body image issues this can cause in the Asian-American community check this article out.) Thinness is the norm here, and the preferred one too, which I've found a little surprising given how many overweight and obese people I've seen out and about here in Harbin.
For someone as tall as I am there are daily reminders that I am several sizes too big to fit in here. I'm constantly ducking my head to keep from hitting it on doorways and decorations. Navigating the sidewalks, supermarkets, and malls most other people squeeze through spaces I have to turn sideways to fit through. (If I can fit through them at all!) I have trouble not stepping on people's toes on the bus 'cause I wear a US size 15. (I just looked up a conversion chart and there weren't even equivalent Chinese shoe sizes listed - apparently those only go up to the equivalent of a US size 13!) I'm practically bent in two when I wash the dishes at home. And then on top of it all I've had almost daily reminders at work about how much larger I am than the norm.
And yet in a way I've appreciated the blasé way weight is brought up. In a way being able to discuss it with almost-strangers is very freeing. Some of the shame is taken away from being overweight when it's just another topic of discussion. Conversely, too many more reminders and I'm sure it won't feel so freeing anymore! But in the scheme of things, given my height and frame I'm not horrifically overweight. I'm no marathon runner anymore, but I'm functionally fit, and I have yet to have any heart or weight-related issues turn up at the doctor's. (Beyond my weight itself being too high of course.)
All the same, it sure can feel like I'm horrifically overweight here. For every obese person I pass on the streets I pass a hundred others who are practically skin and bones. (Sometimes in that stomach-turning way that so many Western models are skinny.) And that in and of itself can be pretty discouraging for someone trying to work on eating healthier and exercising more, and yet not achieving many results. Then again, perhaps given my height and frame, I always will be perceived as gargantuan here, even if I do reach the ideal weight for my height and age. That thought can be pretty discouraging too. So, a word to the wise, if you're in a similar boat and considering a move to China, decide first whether you can handle the above before you make the move!
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