>I Hate Twiggy

>

@font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

Remember cultural tip #6 from my textbook waaay back when I firststarted taking Indonesian lessons? No? I’ll remind you:

Cultural Note #6: “Commenting on somebody’s physicalappearances is somewhat customary in Indonesia, and not to mention as one of thebest ways to show warmth/friendliness. It is wise not to be upset if someonecomments on your body, like ‘Wow, you look fat/thin!’ In this circumstance, youcan respond by smiling or you can also tell a bit joke (about being fat), like‘Yeah, I can hardly find a T-shirt at the store!’

Ok. This is nothing new to me… when I was in India, my hostbrother (sorry Bharat but you know it’s true) used to say to me after a longweekend vacation, “Wow Britt you look so much fatter!” I usually did notrespond with a ‘bit joke’ but instead with, “Dude, you canNOT say that to anAmerican girl!”

Here I’ve tried to just let it roll off my back and for mostof the two years have barely given a second thought to comments about myfatness/thin-ness which usually do not correspond to my actual body weight atall. However, for some unknown reason, this month has been the month ofcommenting about how fat Britt is. An unprecedented number of Indonesians haverecently come up to me and said, “Waaaaaah tambah gemuk! [Wooooowwww you gotfatter!]” while grabbing some gelatinous segment of my body to demonstrate infact how much fat is there. Most popular method: extending the pointer fingerand thumb to ‘gauge’ my upper arm like wowwww look at all your arm mass! Thoseare my guns, son. Get up off.

It’s strange timing because I look pretty much EXACTLY thesame as I have all year, and if anything thinner than last year. And since Iknow it’s just a random comment on their part, I shouldn’t let it bother me.Except, come on people. Honestly, you KNOW that’s a rude thing to say to anAmerican woman. And #2, please remove your fingers from my belly fat. If I’mnot allowed to show my skin in public, you are certainly not allowed to pinchit for measurement purposes.

I keep thinking it will be nice to get back to a countrywhere I’m not an enormous obese giant (although they have a point: Whileshopping the other day, I picked up a pair of pants that went a little morethan halfway across my hips. They were labeled XXXXL). But then I remember allof the wack American beauty standards.

For example, how did we go from this standard of beauty…

…to this one…

…in less than 10 years?

And why haven’t we gotten bored of the Twiggy look? I guesswe added plastic breasts at some point, but the barely pubescent thinness is stillthere. At least in Indonesia, being fat is considered sort of a positive thing.To get fatter means you are happy and prosperous, stress-free, while a skinnyperson might be short on money, ill, or emotionally burdened.

So I guess I should take “You got so fat!” as a compliment.I just wish they would phrase it a little differently. Attention Indonesia: next time youwant to comment on my tambah gemukplease just say, “Wow you look so much more like Marilyn Monroe than Twiggy!”And don’t even think about jiggling my tummy rolls. Thank you.