Brown Hairs On A Yellow Face

Trolley and Aaron can grow beards as I’ve nev­er been able to. It’s always made me a lit­tle envi­ous. I’m not one who can have that gruff, dis­tin­guished look.

This comes as a strange phe­nom­e­non. While my dad could nev­er real­ly devel­op a full beard, he could quick­ly grow an all-over scruff. Scruff like it was made of steel wool. Sometimes he’d have to shave twice a day, and he kept an extra elec­tric shaver in the glove com­part­ment just for this pur­pose.

Apparently, I did­n’t inher­it this gene.

Thumbnail: Razor shavings

Thumbnail: Razor shavings close-up

I did, how­ev­er, inher­it some sort of muta­tion that turns cer­tain hairs brown. I always thought it was Scottish her­itage on Aaron’s part that gave him the orange high­lights in his beard. Now I don’t know what it’s due to.

Unfortunately, I can’t show off this muta­tion, since I have to shave fre­quent­ly.

When I don’t shave, my sparse facial hair makes me look like I’m still going through puber­ty and my balls have yet to drop.

10 comments

  1. I’m an equal fan of scratchy stub­ble and smooth shaven skin, but no beards. Both can be pret­ty delight­ful in their own way ;) That brown hair thing is a bit strange though.

  2. Facial hair only gets one word from me (being of the oppo­site gen­der): Ow.
    I know oth­er Chinese folks with pale hairs in their dark beards. I think it’s com­mon for all races to have dif­fer­ent col­or in their beards.

    And I know three Chinese peo­ple with “crazy hairs” on their head — just a cou­ple on the whole head — white, superthick, and wavy. Two guys I know of pull them out when they find them. I like them. Makes me won­der what genet­ic fluke they came from, and why sev­er­al I’ve know have it. They aren’t grey hairs! They’re white, and odd.

  3. @Bean — I remem­ber rub­bing against my dad’s iron stub­ble when I was young. It always bugged the hell out of me, so I can’t imag­ine how on earth it can be delight­ful!

    @Xibee — I think longer facial hair is soft­er, or maybe just less wiry. Unfortunately, mine does­n’t grow past a cou­ple mil­lime­ters, so it’s always wiry.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen anoth­er Chinese per­son with pale facial hair, unless it’s white. The part I find strange is that on me it’s not a gra­di­ent, it’s duo­tone; either black or a spe­cif­ic shade of brown. Same thing on my head…it’s either black or white, no greys.

    I may have some of these “crazy hairs” though. Sometimes I pluck a white hair for fun, and it’s a total­ly dif­fer­ent tex­ture than black hair. Good to know I’m not the only one.

  4. I met a Chinese guy ear­li­er this year who I swore was in his late 20s… turns out he was in his mid 40s. Ponce de Leon was look­ing in the wrong place, he should’ve sailed to China! Perpetual youth!

  5. @Jason — I get that a lot too. Sometimes I’m still card­ed at pubs. Good thing it’s not movie the­atres any­more. It’s real­ly annoy­ing now, but I sup­pose when I’m 40 it’ll be a good thing. I find it’s pret­ty com­mon among Chinese peo­ple; my rel­a­tives relat­ed it to drink­ing a lot of tea and gin­seng.

  6. I am in the exact sit­u­a­tion as you. I wish I can go for that rugged hitch hik­er look, but I guess we’ll just have to stay with the classy musi­cal com­pos­er look. Suit and ties for the rest of our lives.

    I have 3 shades, black, brown and out­right yel­low.

  7. Hahahhah…I don’t think slen­der Asian builds suit the rugged look any­way. You’re right about suit and ties though, it’s hard to pull off any­thing else.

  8. How about a slim Jim cow­boy look? :)

    I guess a lot of dif­fer­ent genes make up hair.

  9. Hahahha…I saw A Fistful Of Dollars on the week­end actu­al­ly, and Clint Eastwood was look­ing pret­ty slim, but he could still pull off the cow­boy look with his gruff beard.

  10. I’m Caucasian with dark brown hair, but just recent­ly I noticed the facial hair (on my chin only) was turn­ing dif­fer­ent col­ors. Now, one third of my hair is gold­en, one third is red, and one third is black. Perhaps it’s time I shave it off?

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