Yesterday Night

Yesterday night, I was watching "Arts Central" in my room, the channel was airing a documentary series called "Taboo" which delves in how different cultures have different reactions and practices to certain things and what might be taboo in some cultures are perfectly ok in others.

This particular episode I was watching was covering different definitions of beauty by different cultures and what extend they go to to achieve their definition of beauty. Some of them were pretty extreme, for example the women from a tribe in the island of Java willingly chip their teeth to look "beautiful." The process of "teeth chipping" (so to speak) involves some shaman chipping the teeth with nothing but a wooden hammer and a parang so it is a pretty painful.

But what caught my eye was the part about people in China who purposely break their legs and forcefully lengthen them just to look taller. The reason they do this is because short people are looked down upon and shunned in China. My uncle once broke his leg while playing football a few years back and the pain and suffering he when through was enormous. Even now, being fully recovered he still feels occasional pain and weakness in that leg especially during rainy weather. But now we have people willing to through twice the hell my uncle went through just to get a few centimetres of height. Twice because my uncle only broke one leg. :)

There is no doubt that being "pleasant looking" does give you a headstart in life. It will help in getting a job, attracting a mate and even being socially accepted. But are we going to change a part of ourselves just to be accepted by a social circle, just to get that job or even just to make that guy/girl fall in love with me? Or are we going to stay true to ourselves and find friends that will take us for who we are, make the effort to look for a job we truly enjoy and find fulfilling and fall in love with someone who will truly love us for who we are? Is changing who we are whether physically or otherwise a betrayal to the way God made you? These were the questions I asked myself in my sleep yesterday night