Posts tagged with "weight"

frame of mine

I’ve made peace with this body. It has­n’t been an easy peace to come by, as I seem to get con­stant reminders about the diminu­tive size of my stature. Most recent­ly, I met an old­er Chinese woman who admit­ted that she thought I looked sick and weak only after she dis­cov­ered I had col­i­tis. It was as if she thought col­i­tis caused some kind of mal­nu­tri­tion that stunt­ed my growth, and she did­n’t want to bring up the fact that I was this size because it would have been too embar­rass­ing unless it was caused by a med­ical con­di­tion.

Asian male self portrait

 

I’ve been deal­ing with all kinds of sim­i­lar com­ments since I was a kid, so when a girl­friend would say that she liked a par­tic­u­lar part or por­tion of my body, I always thought they were just blind­ed by love. Eventually I real­ized that if they could come to love this body, then I could too. It will nev­er look right in any­thing but slim-fit extra smalls from Mexx. It will nev­er be good enough for my par­ents. But it will always be who I am, and I’ve learned to accept that.

On Being 5'4" and Weighing 115 lbs

  • Her: Does it both­er you that I’m taller?
  • Me: Hah. No.
  • Me: I nev­er under­stood why a guy would feel that way.
  • Her: Good good.
  • Me: Usually it both­ers girls that I’m short­er.
  • Her: I don’t care at all.
  • Her: Do you care that I prob­a­bly weigh more than you as well?
  • Me: Hahahahh, every­one weighs more than me.
  • Me: Trust me.
  • Her: Hahah, I’m just say­ing!!!
  • Me: I’m super light.
  • Me: Why, does it nor­mal­ly both­er oth­er guys if you’re heav­ier?
  • Her: Yeah for sure, I mean I don’t care one way or another…its their prob­lem not mine, they’re the ones miss­ing out.
  • Me: Well if I only dat­ed girls who were lighter than me, I could­n’t date any­one old­er than 14.

The Weight Issue

With a tone of gen­uine con­cern, as if I was being con­sumed by some dis­ease, Abdallah told me he noticed I was get­ting thin­ner. Perhaps this is true. I was recov­er­ing from an episode of IBS, and con­trol­ling my food intake. Maybe its my sets of nar­row, flared pants I’ve been wear­ing late­ly on Julie’s sug­ges­tion1.

Louise tells peo­ple I don’t eat a lot, which is true only when we’re out 2, and is also the only time she’s seen me eat. It makes me even more ill at ease when I’m already feel­ing unat­trac­tive, as if it was my fault and I was­n’t doing enough about it. Others will com­ment about the size of my waist, or make a pass­ing remark about how they wish they had my metab­o­lism.

I try to take it all in stride, but it’s not easy when the sub­ject is con­stant­ly brought up.

According to my doc­tor, I’m aver­age weight — the aver­age being a range, with me being near the bot­tom. I know this, but it does­n’t make it eas­i­er. Bronwen once told me that I have a weight issue, and after think­ing about it for a while, I real­ized that it was true. Even though it’s some­thing I can joke about, it’s still a source of self-con­scious­ness, lead­ing back to mem­o­ries of my par­ents telling me that no one will love me if I’m this size for­ev­er.

Sometimes I won­der if I’ll ever get over it.

  1. Her the­o­ry is that bag­gy pants do noth­ing to hide thin limbs and make skin­ny peo­ple look even skin­nier. [↩]
  2. Usually because I don’t like to be too full when I’m out. [↩]

Lessons From a Childhood of Abuse

I often explain to peo­ple that Karaoke to the Chinese is like drink­ing to the British. We don’t pour pints at our par­ties, we sing. It’s part of the cul­ture. The Chinese-Canadian dream is a Toyota in every dri­ve­way and a Karaoke machine in every house.

My dad was no excep­tion. Like all his hob­bies, he took Karaoke seri­ous­ly. He had singing lessons from a famous teacher. Sometimes, he would record him­self and lis­ten to the tapes to ana­lyze his singing when dri­ving me to school. We would nev­er talk on those hour-long rides, I would only hear him singing, some­times along with his record­ed voice, some­times prac­tic­ing the parts that he did­n’t have quite right.

When I was young, about sev­en, I would sing one of the English songs from his col­lec­tion. I could­n’t tell you why. Karaoke did­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est me. Maybe it was a way for me to be a part of his life. He had noth­ing to do with me oth­er­wise.

Continue read­ing “Lessons From a Childhood of Abuse”…

Kilted Groomsmen

“You’re the per­fect woman.”

She real­izes this as she writes down my chest, waist, and hip size, then asks rhetor­i­cal­ly, “What are the typ­i­cal­ly ide­al mea­sure­ments?”.

Aaron and I could only look at each oth­er, as we had no idea.

“36–26–36.”

“Wow, so you’re a real­ly hot chick!”, says Aaron.

Hi-LAR-ious. Years of con­fi­dence I’ve gained, girl­friends con­vinc­ing me that I’m not too skin­ny, gone.

Reduced to a male fan­ta­sy, I’m my own dream girl.

“And how much do you weigh?”

“(Pause)…113”.

“After he’s had a buf­fet”, Aaron adds. My friend the come­di­an. To con­sole me, he says, “It’s okay. Remember, you’ll be paired up with Jenn in the par­ty”.

My coun­ter­part. The tini­est girl I know.

Thumbnail: Aaron's wedding band

In the last few years I’ve been to wed­dings for oth­er friends, but Aaron’s the first out of my core group to get mar­ried (although Pat got engaged before him). To pay trib­ute to his cul­ture, he wants the wed­ding to be a bit Scottish — some­thing his Popa is espe­cial­ly pleased about.

As a grooms­man, I’ll be wear­ing a kilt. As a Chinese guy, I’ll be feel­ing a lit­tle out-of-place.

Thumbnail: Matching the sporran and kilt colours
Thumbnail: Comparing sporrans
Thumbnail: Ghillie Brogues
Thumbnail: Ghillie Brogues

He asked me to give him a hand in shop­ping for the regalia. What a cul­ture shock. Looking through cat­a­logues of claid­heamh, sporrans, Sgian Dubhs, Ghillies Brogues. I can’t even pro­nounce the names. My tongue was­n’t made for these kinds of inflec­tions.

“It’ll take you guys longer to get dressed than the bride”.

Before we leave I remem­ber to ask, “Can we go tra­di­tion­al?”, with Aaron adding, “My Popa would be pret­ty upset if we did­n’t”.

Traditional. The euphemism for com­man­do. The euphemism for bear-ass naked.

“Don’t wor­ry, every­thing is dry-cleaned”, say the woman reas­sur­ing­ly.

It’s only after we leave that I real­ize every­thing but the shirt is made of wool.

I’ll be scratch­ing my balls through the whole ser­vice.