Kimchi Mamas

Forms of Torture at Korean Hair Salons

The comments in the last post inspired me to write this post. =)

Korean hair salons (at least the ones I've been to in the LA area) have some fancy smancy forms of torture. Have you ever had to endure the "magic" straight perm or the "digital" perm? They take forEVER to do. Yet, I endured it, time and time again, so that my straight hair could be straighter.

What do you mean you ask?  How can straight hair become straighter? Well, you see, before the "magic" straight perm, my hair would look like this if I didn't blow dry, curl, and/or flat iron it. Sometimes it would look like this even when I DID blow dry it.

I like myself just how I am, I think?

So, I have some extra time to myself this week while my daughter is spending some time with her dad.

The plan: haircut!

I haven't gotten my hair cut in over six months. My last hairdresser said something about "oriental babies" being so cute, so instead of saying anything, I'm just never going there again.

This time, I went to a Korean hairdresser. I liked her because she was more business than chatty. But, once I opened my mouth and asked about wedding hair, it was all over.

Instead of giving me a regular blow dry, she made my hair all pretty and curly - "Today's your wedding day!" she proudly exclaimed. So, today, for the first time ever, I have boing-boing curls. And I almost like them.

On the flip side, I am miffed that the makeup artist that works at the salon made comments about my skin. She told me, "you have an acne problem."

Great. I could feel her looking at my brows, my forehead. Eh. She asked if I was going to wear contacts when I got married, and I told her that, no, I don't wear contacts. She was shocked. Now, why in the world would I trust someone like that to do my makeup for my wedding?

It just confirms all the negative things that I think of when I think of beauty products and beauty salons. I believe that I can be beautiful without getting my eyebrows done, without contacts and with my acne. Why do I need to have curly hair to be beautiful? Who ever said that my straight black hair isn't beautiful?

I'm torn. I'm enjoying the boing-boing curls for tonight, even though it just doesn't feel like me. But it makes me want to rebel and not so anything crazy and fancy with my make-up and hair for the wedding. Because I'm not that fancy (I'll admit, I am sometimes crazy) in real life.

But, I'll admit it. I'm totally enjoying flipping my curls, just for tonight.

~ eliaday, who washed out her boing-boing curls this morning and is enjoying straight, newly cut hair.

So, I have some extra time to myself this week while my daughter is spending some time with her dad.

The plan: haircut!

I haven't gotten my hair cut in over six months. My last hairdresser said something about "oriental babies" being so cute, so instead of saying anything, I'm just never going there again.

This time, I went to a Korean hairdresser. I liked her because she was more business than chatty. But, once I opened my mouth and asked about wedding hair, it was all over.

Instead of giving me a regular blow dry, she made my hair all pretty and curly - "Today's your wedding day!" she proudly exclaimed. So, today, for the first time ever, I have boing-boing curls. And I almost like them.

On the flip side, I am miffed that the makeup artist that works at the salon made comments about my skin. She told me, "you have an acne problem."

Great. I could feel her looking at my brows, my forehead. Eh. She asked if I was going to wear contacts when I got married, and I told her that, no, I don't wear contacts. She was shocked. Now, why in the world would I trust someone like that to do my makeup for my wedding?

It just confirms all the negative things that I think of when I think of beauty products and beauty salons. I believe that I can be beautiful without getting my eyebrows done, without contacts and with my acne. Why do I need to have curly hair to be beautiful? Who ever said that my straight black hair isn't beautiful?

I'm torn. I'm enjoying the boing-boing curls for tonight, even though it just doesn't feel like me. But it makes me want to rebel and not so anything crazy and fancy with my make-up and hair for the wedding. Because I'm not that fancy (I'll admit, I am sometimes crazy) in real life.

But, I'll admit it. I'm totally enjoying flipping my curls, just for tonight.

~ eliaday, who washed out her boing-boing curls this morning and is enjoying straight, newly cut hair.

Who can pull off the hair better?

or

- Mary is happy to have finally gotten a good picture of her baby smiling.

Korean Make-Up

Does anyone use Korean make up?

I used to use Hydro something or another by Isa Knox but it got a little too expensive for me so I have stopped using it.  Also, my skin was gettin' a bit dry with the pregnancy and all so now I use the Borghese stuff that they sell at Costco and you know what?  It's pretty good.  I didn't like the smell at first but my skin seems to like it so yeah...

Korean make up seems to be getting big nowadays... a lot of my Chinese co workers use it and I've seen it being sold at a lot of places that aren't Korean.  I guess that's good?!

I love the brow pencil that has the mascara brush type thing-y at the other end of the pencil to "blend" the brow after you draw it in... so convenient!

What's has been your experience with Korean make up, if any?

Here's a picture of the beautiful Hyori selling Isa Knox make up.  Didn't even know she was a model for them until I did a google image search...

- Mary

Circumcision

A recent episode over at momversation got me thinking about this issue. 

It seems like circumcision is becoming less and less popular in the US and some are even calling it "mutilation" or "amputation." I had no idea that people were so passionate about this.

I know that in Korea, a lot of boys are circumcised when they are older... like in 5th, 6th grade or even when in high school. I remember watching a Korean movie about a gangster who returns to high school. He and a bunch of other teenage boys at his school get circumcised together. Boy, were they ever in pain. I don't know what the practice is now.

According to Wikipedia "Circumcision in South Korea is largely the result of American cultural and military influence following the Korean War. "

I feel like most Korean men are circumcised and that most Korean women prefer a circumcised penis.  Did I just make a huge huge generalization? (Please no lynching.) 

Suckers for Pyramid Schemes?

Today I had a surprising visit from someone I know (between an acquaintance and a friend) who tried to sell me on a modified pyramid scheme.  This one happens to involve an internet shopping website.  You get a percentage of whatever you and your downstream peeps, spend on the website.  You pay a modest but significant annual membership fee. 

They have high quality products, she assured me.  They are have a lot of organic and green products.  Don't you want to leave a green earth for your kids?  Me and my husband's health have dramatically improved with their vitamins.  Etc. Etc...

Is it me or are Kimchi Mamas suckers for these pyramid schemes?

You can kiss my epicanthal folds

Funny that song-ah-puhl was mentioned recently, because I have been thinking about this very thing lately. Our eye shape is undeniably a defining trait, and as we know all too well, favorite fodder for playground taunts from the young and old. Sigh. And the rampant eyelid surgeries and commentary all over the Internets seem to lean towards describing the epicanthal fold (from Wikipedia: a skin fold of the upper eyelid, from the nose to the inner side of the eyebrow, covering the inner corner of the eye) as a kind of "unfortunate feature", if not an all-out defect - like a medical condition to be corrected. And I say, RAAAAAAR!! to that. These are the eyes I was born with, the eyes of my mother and father and everyone that came before, and I've made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby, er, I mean eyelids.

Not too long ago, Mama Nabi did the whole gallery of women with whom she has been compared, and in a similar vein here's a gallery of gowajous single-lidded women. Like me, all these women have epicanthal folds to some degree. Some do have a double lid in that the skin that retracts when the eye is open folds over the eyeball instead of under (mine fold under), but the inner corner is covered by the fold. Besides this, and the general Asianness, that's probably the only thing I can claim having in common with any of them. But, I am proud to bear my Korean face. And these women posess the features I recognize in myself and all the generations of women (and men) in my family. So without further ado ...

Big-Ass Korean-American Girl

Recent posts about body image and the dark/light skin debate have inspired me to write about the topic of size. Specifically, my size. For those of you who haven’t met me in person, I am the product of a teeny-tiny Korean mother (100 lbs, 5 feet tall) and a large, American Anglo-Saxon father (190 lbs, 6’2”).

I measure 5’7” tall and ain’t nobody ever called me lithe or svelte. Let's just say I’m zaftig. I’ve always been okay with my size and shape (though more now than when I was an insecure teenager) – except for the one time I went to Korea.

I was fifteen at the time, and stood at the height I am now; however, my figure was much more, uh, nubile. Anyway, being at least a head taller than every other Korean woman around, I stuck out like a sore thumb. People gawked and stared at me in the streets, and my family members – whom I was meeting for the first time – would not stop commenting to my mom (in Korean, which I didn’t understand) about my appearance. (Mind you, they had positive things to say!) Still, I felt very self-conscious during that visit.  In fact, I can hardly believe I was brave enough to visit a public bath house with my mom, aunts, and cousins – stripping down totally nekkid – without thinking twice! I remember feeling quite comfortable, once denuded, and wishing that there were bathhouses like that back home in California.

Shades of the Asian Persuasion

The other day on the Tyra Show (don’t judge, it was on and I was vacuuming) the topic of discussion was light-complected African American women versus dark-complected.  Though I am not deeply knowledgeable about the discussion, I am somewhat familiar with it.  (I went to a small liberal arts women’s college that was made up of about 30% African American and many of my friends have introduced me to the topic.)  The gist of the debate is that some African-Americans believe lighter-complected African-American women are treated sometimes better in a majority Caucasian US culture because of their shade of color  Tyra did a really good job of showing not only the hurt that comes with being “darker” but also the other side: the side of being rejected by your own because you’re lighter.

I bring this up on Kimchi Mamas because though within the Asian community there is no active, lively debate about light versus dark, I know from personal experience that there are some underlying pressures and thoughts about light versus dark.

Being Mom and the Post Baby Body

I am SICK and TIRED of seeing celebrity women (and in some cases girls) on the cover of magazines parading around in their perfect post-partum/pregnant poses!  Photos of Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Jamie Lynn-Spears, Jennifer Lopez,Halle Barry and Heidi Klum weeks(!) after giving birth on the red carpet (and in Klum’s case lighted thong on the catwalk) are making me MAD.  Not angry . . . MAD!

It’s already hard enough to look at your flabby tummy right after giving birth, but throw into the mix being a new mother (and every time you have a baby you’re a new mother), post-partum blues/depression, raging hormones, the lack of consistent sleep and boobs the size of basketballs but swollen like a beached whale, the last thing I want to be accosted with on my 45 minute "vacation" to the grocery store are images of Jolie weeks after birth rockin’ a size 2!

So I made some calls: