I’m back to talk about gender again. I want to make ‘gender-blender’ happen, but I doubt it’ll catch on. In my last post, I finished it by talking about EJAE, the singing voice for Rumi from Kpop Demon Hunters. She never made it as a Kpop star in Korea, and she has said it’s because her voice was deemed not feminine enough. I have watched a bunch of reactions to her singing the songs that she’s pprobably an alto with a really big range. Yes, everyone loves her high notes (and she nails them; they’re so pure!), but several singers/voice coaches have commented on how warm her low notes are. And how dark. Honestly, I like it when she’s hitting the low notes more so than when she goes way high.
I know that South Korea in general is obsessed with looks and rigid gender roles. When I watch Kpop singers, it’s very clear that so many of them have had work done, even though they’re in their twenties and thirties. When I was in Taiwan, I got made fun of by my Taiwanese cousins for being fat. When I was in Thailand, I was told I looked like a man, basically. This was thirty-plus years ago, but I’m not sure how much it’s changed now.
I used to say that I got hit with rampant sexism from both my cultures, just in different ways. It really did a number on my head to be told in so many ways that I was just so wrong. The weight was the first of many things that I was supposed to change. My mother put me on my first diet when I was seven. But, at the same time, I was supposed to eat everything on my plate because she was an Asian mom at heart.
I was seven. Seven! Being told that I was fat and gross. Maybe my mother didn’t say the second word, but she made it painfully clear that she felt that way. She did actually say, “Your face would be so beautiful if yonly you weren’t so fat.” I think I was a teen or in my early twenties then.
When I was eighteen and about to go to college, I decided to lose weight. I went hard and lost forty pounds in two months. And became anorexic. Not on purppose, obviously, but it happened. I almost feel ilke it was destined to happen given my mom’s nagging. Then, in college, I could not keep up my exercise regime (I exercised up to seven hours a day), so I started adding casual bulimia to the mix. What do I mean by that? I mean that I ‘only’ did it two or three times a week. I put only in quotes because I know how that sounds now, but at the time, it made perfect sense to me.
I didn’t have the strength to starve myself the way I had before. I would try, but–see. I only slept three hours a night. That left me with several hours in which I had to stay awake. And not eat. I would eat oyster crackers for breakfast and lunch. A cup of them. Then I would have maybe a bit of fish and rice for dinner. Then, I would stave off the hunger until two or three in the morning. When I could not stand it any longer, I would buy several packets from the vending machine and scarf them down. Then, I would feel guilty about it and throw it back up.