Opposite Attracts

I am just surprised, well sort of – that some of our qualities as Filipina, that we don’t like in ourselves, people would spend a lot of money for them to have it.

One day, my friend came in the office with an orange stripe on her ankle. She warned me saying, “Don’t mind my ankle, I’ve got stripes from my fake tan, I didn’t rub it evenly”. I was smiling and said, “Don’t you know that I wanted to have fair skin like you?” And she was stunned with awe because all along she adored my naturally tan skin. Huh! She made a real fuss and told everybody in the office about it, and they laugh at me because they love my skin-colour. I was in a hotseat for awhile listening to my story that back in the Philippines all you can see is Whitening lotions, and most of the beauty products have whitening substance in it. They won’t believe me at all! They were and still are thinking that I am just making the stories up. I wasn’t and I am not, I can prove it right? I googled it and proved them wrong. Back in our land, girls with tanned skin are unattractive and not beautiful and boys won’t lay eyes on them – no chance. That’s why we tried very hard to get the right colour for us to be beautiful and attractive.

When I first came here in England, I was thinking… Gosh! My skin will be lighter now, as its cold and the sunshine wont burn my skin. I look around in shops to buy whitening lotion, but I couldn’t find. In fact, I can only find tanning lotion instead. What the hell! Why the hell these products are sold? We want whitening but never a TANNING lotion!!! Honestly, it never occurred to my mind that there are people struggling to have tanned skin. They even have tanning saloon, that you have to pay a quid to burn your skin in a “blue light thingy”… and you would look hilarious in a tiny black eye covers. High-end tan maintenance is very expensive. They’ve got someone spray like a brown paint in your whole body with clothes off.

Anyway, another thing that they are conscious about is the tiny hair on their legs and arms… To me, there’s nothing wrong with that, I like to have one as it’s a bit sexy and again… attractive. My skin looks like a deserted place that no plant will grow. I never had it on my skin, and never wax nor shave it. They told me that I am the luckiest person in the world (with exaggeration of course huh) that I don’t need to spend hundreds of Pounds to wax that hairy bits. It opened my mind to appreciate what I got is more than enough to be attractive.

Another classic thing is, people with straight hair will curl it and people with curly hair will straighten it. We are never happy and content of what we’ve got. We can never appreciate it either. But as a person, no matter how you look like, CONFIDENCE is the key word. If you have it in your heart and mind, you are sexy and beautiful. So ladies, don’t despair if you have the qualities that you don’t like, because it’s the most appreciated things in the foreign land. I will never change my colour and I will never change my image to conform to what the society is expecting of. Don’t be chameleon. Just like in friendship, a friend should never change no matter what happened. We all know this that once we found one true friend, we are very lucky… 