"I'm not pretty," I said as my tiny, light brown eyes looked up at my mother.
"What do you mean you're not pretty?" she asked a bit shocked at my words.
"I don't have blond hair or blue eyes."
Of course my mother proceeded to tell me how beautiful she thought I was, how I didn't have to have blond hair and blue eyes to be beautiful, but I thought she was just saying that because she was my mom. Nevertheless, her words did help to smooth out some of the cracks in my fragile self-image, and it was a heck of a lot better than just saying, "Yep, you're right. You're not pretty."
As a 29 year old adult looking back on that memory of myself at 5 years old, I can't help but be shocked by my own words even though it's obvious why I said them. What upsets me most is not my twisted and manipulated sense of beauty at such a young age. It must have been painful for my mother to hear those words from me. It must have made her wonder if bringing me to the United States was a good choice.
But I'm certain the Aryan Princess would have haunted me even if I had remained in Taiwan where I was born.
When I was a toddler, my nickname was “Xiao Tian Tian” which literally translates into "Little Sweet Sweet" and roughly translates to "Little Sweetheart." It was made clear to me that that name was associated with a particular character drawing. The “Xiao Tian Tian” character, which appeared on pencil boxes, pencil boards, backpacks, and even bicycles (all of which were given to me as presents from my extended family), was a blond hair and blue eyed doll.
I remember thinking, even as a little toddler, “She doesn’t look anything like me…”
Yet the presents with her blond hair and blue eyes kept coming with expressions like, “Look! It’s you! Xiao Tian Tian!”
Interestingly enough, when Britney Spears became an international pop idol, she was known in Taiwan as “Xiao Tian Tian.” When I saw all the images of her shaving her head off, I wondered if the Aryan Princess had been haunting her, too.
In junior high, a blond classmate of mine pranced around announcing to the class (which was about 50% Asian-American) that her uncle had told her that she was an Aryan Princess. She was quite happy to hear that news. Having no knowledge about World War II or Hitler at the time, I didn’t know what to make of her words. I already knew she was an American Princess with her preciously golden hair, so I didn’t know why she was privileged enough to add yet another royal title to her name.
At the end of high school in the early to mid 90s, I remember there was trend at the time amongst the Asian-American girls there to wear colored eye contacts. At first glance, I thought they were somehow ill because they just didn’t look right. Then I noticed the hazel, grays, and greens of their eyes and how it made their skin look rather sickly. The most upsetting were the ones who wore blue eye contacts. As a 16 year old, the sight of an Asian-American girl with blue eyes was a deep betrayal.
