by Thu Nguyen

Created on: August 14, 2010   Last Updated: August 15, 2010

Skinny or Curvy?

I had to ask my husband this question because all of my life I’ve been curvy. He has no complaints with that, but with others I kept getting big-boned or fat with which I’m perfectly fine because that’s just opinions. However for Asians in particular, the overall general population are really skinny people.

If you look online, famous Asian females subject themselves to the modern fashion and arts of the world. So the debate here might come out a bit on the other side, however just for the sake of what’s appealing between skinny verses curvy, we’ll have to see how the east and the west comes out. Let’s take a look shall we.

From the East

Zhang Ziyi of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame brings on more of the allure for skinny Asia. As modern Hong Kong movies enables their females to show more skin and be more Americanized to engage themselves in intense romantic scenes, the bare essence of open clothed pictures brought on the onslaught of arousal in the young males all over Asia. With that, Asian men are skinny by nature so they prefer a skinny woman too. Thus, you’ll hardly see a curvy, bodacious female on the magazine. Online, that’s a different matter. Bollywood, that's a different matter too.

For centuries and through dynasties, temptation is one of the lures of the mind. If you’ve been following those Asian movies in the Americas you’ll see that there’s a deep sense of non-selfishness. At most, tragedies in many cases. Asians will not subject themselves to anything that will make them lose face. That goes with their bodies too no matter how attractive it may be.

From the West

In the Americas, Lucy Liu and Maggie Q bring a sophistication which doesn’t subject the female body to skinny nor curvy but neutral in between. It is in Tila Tequila that there is more of the curvature taking place and young Asian Americans nowadays look up to artists like Beyonce or Hip Hop fashion to rock their bodices. So it’s curves here in the States.

However, America is highly populated with immigrants of Asian descent and along with their skinny frame comes the attraction to all things skinny as well. I probably would rank low on their people to watch list as the competition with skinny takes on too much of the popular fashion, lifestyle design and even jargon. Skinny is definitely in for certain inner circles.

As an American-born Asian, all that glamour wasn’t appealing. For years, I thought there was something wrong with me because I was too big or too curvy. Stares would be thrown my way when I traveled overseas to visit and when they saw how I was, they proposed I go on a diet.

There is no end to how curvy Asians fair with the natives. Hands down, they’ll look at you. You are just too big. Worse with implantation and surgical molding of the faces, body and wherever fat may be rid of, skinny is still something they think is natural. Skinny however as the norm is rather the preferred choice. But that’s just what my reality says only I’ll keep my curves. It’s my secret even though skinny is appealing for most here.

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