Sha! What a beauty?!

A few months ago we went to Sri Lanka for our summer holidays. It was the same ol Sri Lanka with its non existent traffic rules, tall coconut trees, hungry crows and statues of the very peaceful Buddha. Family members still stare at you, cousins still expect stories about how you paint the town red in your hot pants because you live abroad (an expectation that could not be farther away from reality!) and aunties will give you their opinion on what you look like, even though they haven't been asked for it. Their judgements will focus mainly on three categories:

Height: It does not matter what your height is. They will just have to comment on it. Nothing too complex. The comment will be a basic "she's tall, ah?" or "she's pretty short, no?". You do not necessarily have to be TALL to be labelled as tall. You just have to be tall according to Sri Lankan standards. For girls, an average height of 5 ft 2 inches would easily be considered as tall. Also, if you're too tall (close to 6 ft) it may be seen as a slightly worrying issue for your parents (where will they find someone tall enough to marry her, ah?)

Weight: Slightly more complicated. I guess the scale goes like this: skinny - thin - slim/healthy - fat - overweight. Being 'slim'/healthy is preferred, but not clearly defined. What is perceived as slim/healthy could be chubby, curvy or just neither thin nor fat! It is also absolutely mandatory that your current weight be compared to your weight when you were last seen by your aunt (e.g. "You've lost a lot (of weight) ah?" or "Oh, you've put on (weight) no?").

Complexion: Now this is the racist bugger - complexion. Females are expected to be fair skinned. They are called white even though they are not necessarily what is commonly known as white (think snow white). Instead they could be the colour of tea with milk (when the tea is not too strong, and you can still taste the milk - not the kind I prefer) and be called white. If their skin is fairer than 'white' (this can be anything between a slight tan and snow white), they will be refereed to as 'white, white!' (yes, with the exclamation mark). In most cases, the complexion of the person will be spoken of in terms of how 'fair' they are, instead of the actual skin tone. For example, a dark skinned girl will most probably be described as "not fair at all" instead of simply "dark skinned". For men, it is acceptable to be any skin shade, but again, the fairer, the more they are considered as attractive.

In many cases, the height and even the weight may be overlooked, but the complexion is at a higher point. If it's not clear already, let me spell it out: in our culture - fair is beautiful. Therefore the popularity of skin whiting products among both women and men (but most commonly women). 

Height, weight and complexion of skin become even more important factors (in addition to other relevant points such as age, education, occupation, wealth, reputation, family background, neighbors, great-grandfather's occupation, size of house, size of family, length of hair, size of toes, etc) when it comes to judging ones eligibility for marriage. If you are Sri Lankan, your eligibility for marriage is probably being judged from the time your first tooth emerges but things get serious by the time you start walking without support.

People of Sri Lanka - you are people of Sri Lanka!! I can appreciate that every culture has their own perception of what is beautiful, but we are who we are. Why would you want to see being fair skinned as the ultimate beauty factor when you come from an island in Asia who primarily have darker skin tones?

Having said that, why look at skin tones at all? Whether it is trying to judge a person to be beautiful or a suitable marriage partner for your son/daughter, is the exterior all that counts? How about what's inside?

That charming personality, charismatic smile, kind heart, ability to adapt to your family.

True beauty is more than what meets the eye. Have you ever had that moment when someone tells you about an act of goodness done by someone else; someone you have never met and have no idea what they look like and yet you feel their beauty? You feel it in the niceness of their character and the care in what they have done. Push yourselves past the superficiality. There is more to a person than the common social cultural perception of what makes people beautiful.

And I swear I'm not saying all of this because I am somewhat short, chubby, a darker shade of milk with tea and have still not met any suitors. Aunties (and secretly uncles) - we don't want your un-asked-for comments on how we look (unless you have nice and decent things to say - that boost to one's self esteem and ego is always welcome!). Talk to us and find out more about who we are rather than what shampoo or face wash we use.

Please excuse the excessive swearing and points irrelevant to this post but do watch, its quiet entertaining:

And this has pretty much nothing to do with what I wrote about today, but its a response to the previous video and is just hilarious (I thought so at least):

HarryPereira and JehanR are individual Lankan YouTube-ers who had made the above videos. I do not own or am in any way related to any of the videos. I am just copy/pasting their links. I also clearly do not know how to write disclaimers.

You are a beauty!