Standards of Beauty

At one point the girls were talking to me about haikus and "old-world" ideas of art and beauty. They showed me a centuries-old painting of a beautiful woman, but one image wasn't enough. The girls squished and pinched their faces to demonstrate all the traits, which evidently include: VERY long hair, full puffy cheeks, a round squishy mouth, and very narrow, slanted eyes. Today, of course, the standards are very different and if you are a decently-attractive Westerner, then they think you're beautiful by default. Especially if you are light-skinned with light eyes and/or hair. John, who looks like an ex-football player with long blond curls, is regularly stopped by strangers who think he's handsome. Some guy even asked to take his picture last weekend, just because. He's not THAT good-looking :) ...but the point is, if you are not Japanese, you stand out, and usually it's for the better. What's funny is that I usually think the people who tell us WE are beautiful are beautiful as well. Oh, the allure of the Other.