Nancy, the Reactive Attachment Disorder blogger, made a comment on one of my earlier posts (They Forget I’m Asian) and it brought back memories. She said that her daughter makes comments that she wishes she looks like her mother and sister.

I remember this. I lived through it. My sister lived through it. There’s a whole variety of possible reasons for that statement.
• I wanted to be just like my mother. Many little girls would like to be just like their mother. Sometimes it might be that simple.
• There is a desire to fit in. Being a Korean adoptee creates a separation from the family that many have trouble with – being different is upsetting.
• Perception of beauty.

The third reason didn’t really occur to me until recently and perhaps it’s because the first two are the most common, but beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder. In fact, our perception of beauty may not be it’s own reason, but an underlying factor in a lot of a Korean adoptee’s anxiety. I never cared if anyone thought I was beautiful until I was a teen and then it was not overriding, but my sister always cared. Until she went to college, I’m pretty sure that my sister didn’t think she was beautiful at all.

The city we grew up in is very Caucasian. Minorities are in the single digit percentages. My sister didn’t date in high school. I dated, but they were all childhood friends and not really that serious. Unless you were a superstar athlete or personality, it was very unlikely that you would see interracial dating. Once again, I don’t think that it was deliberate (for the most part), but in some areas those mental divides are harder to cross than in other areas.

My sister is truly beautiful. I always viewed myself as cute, but my sister has that extra something that passes her into the beautiful category. For one thing, she has the kind of body that makes her look tall even though she is about 5’2” and she weighs about 105 pounds (maybe). She has done quite a bit of modeling work since she went to college so I’m pretty sure that it’s not just me being biased.

Despite her looks, my sister really didn’t think she was even passable until she went to college and young men started asking her out. I remember when she was very small she used to tell us that she wanted to be blond, have blue eyes and be called Stephanie. Once she was in college, people from the outside reinforced what my parents always told her and suddenly she believed it. Perhaps it was growing up or perhaps it was the change in setting. No one really knows – maybe not even my sister.

I think part of it is what you perceive as beautiful. Growing up, most of the actors and media personalities that I knew were Caucasian so my perception of beauty was based on the blond, blue-eyed model. There was a certain standard to mainstream beauty and as Korean adoptees, we could not hope to meet those standards.

If you would like to comment, but not on this site, please feel free to e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.