MBelonging to My Body
I should have been born a boy. At least, that’s what everybody said of me practically from the moment I was born. Only then, of course, the idea of being the family tomboy still possessed the charm of novelty. I could not have known that this joke of an observation would foreshadow the rest of my childhood, following me well into adolescence. Even now, I can almost hear my relatives’ chorus of voices, indistinct and heavy with undertone, strained from having to hide beneath the certainty and protection of a smile.
In the eyes of my Chinese family, proper girls came in small, pale, petite packages, like my eldest cousin Ireen, whom I envied until college. Having been too dark and plump for their standards, I became an easy target for my uncles’ shaming jokes and my aunts’ pointed suggestions, mostly given to fill the awkward silences during family gatherings. My father liked to join in on the fun as well. He would tease me and my younger brother that the gods probably had our genders confused, for he had been very pale and thin as a child, and I was clearly the odd one out on the girls’ side of the table.
On the way home, he would repeat the more memorable jokes and ask my opinion on them, as if to gauge my capacity for humor. “Michelle,” he would call, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. “Uncle Alex said you ate well again today. What did you think of that?” Usually I tried to avoid these questions, mumbling a comment on something else or pretending to be engrossed in the passing landscape. If I remained silent he would chuckle and whisper to my mother, in a tone that wavered between mockery and nonchalance, “I think she’s angry.” Mostly she defended me, chastising him for teasing me or steering the conversation somewhere else. At the time, I considered her my sole ally. Her silent reassurance made everything more bearable—until one Sunday afternoon, the day after a Christmas reunion, I found myself standing at a L’Oreal outlet, watching her pile bottles of whitening lotions into a shopping basket. I touched her arm. Placing a firm hand over mine, she led me toward a counter, and I felt myself bristling as a saleslady looked me over from head to toe. My cheeks flushed at the recognition of shame.
-----
Once, during a housewarming dinner, I found out that these insinuations—subtle or otherwise—were part of a game. An aunt had invited us to her newly renovated house in Manila, and I had offered to accompany my mother to the party. We arrived at an elaborate two-story house surrounded by a well-trimmed garden. The front doors opened to a white living room with gleaming walls and tiles. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, scattering points of yellow light around the room. Everything was pristine. I was glad to have dressed well for the occasion.
Dinner convened on the back patio. The starless night was lit up by multicolored Christmas lights strewn across the branches of low trees. My mother exchanged greetings with several relatives I did not recognize. My eyes wandered around the garden in search of a familiar face. I found none, save for a fleeting glimpse of my favorite godmother, who was busy chattering with other guests in the kitchen. As the people around me conversed, I filled my thoughts with visions of warm food, considering myself too young and unfamiliar to initiate a conversation. Suddenly, my mother said something in reference to me. Her voice pulled me out of my reverie.
“Oh. You’re Helen’s daughter?” a distant aunt remarked from across the table, her eyes widening in surprise. For a moment I wondered if she thought I was the housemaid.
A dozen ears pricked up at the tone of her voice. I did not know it then, but apparently the game had begun. Lips stopped in mid-conversation, blank faces turning towards me in anticipation. I straightened my posture, self-conscious and eager to please. I smiled, nodded, grateful for the attention. In the silence that followed, she peered down at me, her face contorting into a frown. “Well, that’s all right,” she said, in a tone meant to be reassuring, “there’s always whitening.”
And just like that, the game ended. The others turned away, already bored. My smile faded just the slightest bit, a retort gathering at the corners of my mouth. I bit my tongue, fingers curling, mentally noted down a point against me. I stole a glance at my mother, seated to my left. She was fingering the edges of her napkin, faithfully swallowing her food.
-----
I learned to recognize this game too, eventually. The rules were simple. You played with words, chose your pieces from experience, lined them up according to merit, weighing the ambiguity of their intentions and their capacity for pain. The players themselves may change every so often, but the roles they play remained the same. It soon became routine for me to spot them in a crowd: the sharp-tongued but seemingly well-meaning aunt, the awkward, pick-of-the-day cousin, his or her suddenly mute parents, the bemused uncles, and my single, oblivious grandmother. Of course, there was also the rapt audience formed by the remaining cousins; after all, like any other performance, the success of the game hinged on the presence of spectators.
Whenever I had the rare blessing of being part of the audience, I jumped at the chance to observe the proceedings from the sidelines. I took down notes in my mind. Usually, the beginning of a game would be signaled by a lull in conversation. Some of the younger children would be running around the room, chased by dour housemaids carrying tiny plates of food. Those of us who no longer had the fortune of having single-digit ages would either be whispering to each other or fumbling with our cell phones. Someone, an enterprising uncle perhaps, might break the silence by calling attention to any one of us who belonged to that unpleasant stage between childhood and adulthood. Everyone’s heads would turn toward the chosen target. The rest of us would exhale a tiny breath of relief. The game was underway.
Each round would begin with a seemingly innocuous question, for example: “How do you like the food?” No right answer existed, but of course one had to give a reply. “It’s okay,” a cousin might mumble, perhaps already cringing in anticipation of the joke: “Must be why you’ve downed so much already! Didn’t think anyone was looking, huh?” The others would laugh, naturally, and try to keep up the banter.
Occasionally, someone would cross a line, and the cousin’s parents would attempt a defense. At best, they might succeed in introducing a new topic of interest and dissolve the game. At worst, they could end up calling unwanted attention to themselves, upon which the game entered a new phase. I never found out why my aunts liked to play this game, but perhaps part of the excitement for them was the knowledge that even they weren’t immune to it either. I must admit, even I felt a certain morbid fascination to seeing them launch thinly disguised criticisms at each other. It was a more thrilling version of the game because they were much more adept at it than any of us cousins. As a spectator, you couldn’t help but marvel at the amount of insult they managed to veil with concerned remarks. If you hadn’t been following their dialogue closely, you probably wouldn’t detect anything wrong.
With time, I understood the importance of keeping up this façade: the game’s secret lay in cultivating tact and discretion; crudeness was never an option, at least not for my aunts. Watching them, I learned to measure skill in units of sharpness, subtlety, or sarcasm. Sometimes I wondered how it felt like, to be able to flick a glance at someone, a relative, and casually remark on the dullness of her hair, the size of her feet, her current weight. And the smile. Always, always with a smile.
-----
Many years later, while waiting in line at a buffet table, a younger cousin asked me how I had managed to lose weight so quickly. I sensed a hint of envy in her voice, and I told her the truth: puberty, it simply happened. Gemberlie pressed her lips together in disappointment. Perhaps she had expected a different answer, the kind that involved the sharing of dieting secrets, the kind I could not give. I stole a surreptitious glance at her thirteen-year-old body and recalled the many words of advice her own mother had given me before. For a moment, a pointed remark lingered on my tongue, and as I watched her fidget under my gaze, I contemplated playing the game. For once, I held the dice, and I was surprised at how natural it seemed just then. Spiteful words rolled around in my mouth, eager to be spoken, impatient for revenge. I bit down on my lip and considered my options until I reached the buffet table. As I heaped a serving onto my plate, I was conscious of Gemberlie moving behind me to occupy the space I had filled. In that moment, I was illumined. Seeing her behind me, I was flooded with understanding. Eyes cast down, I concentrated on picking up a spoon. My hand swayed.
In the end I chose not to say anything, although even now I can’t explain exactly why. A tiny calmness had spread inside me, as if something had been quelled within, and perhaps that was enough for me. It was a strange feeling. I remember moving away from the buffet table and thinking it was not that hard after all. But it was not always like that. Adolescence and the years before were much more difficult. At eleven, what I knew about myself was limited to a few things: I was not beautiful; I was darker and chubbier than I was supposed to be; and I would always be at the losing end of the game. There was nothing I could have done then, I know that now, and yet at the time it felt like a huge weight rested on me, like the world was constantly waiting for me to make my move.
And so I staged a brief, foolish rebellion. I have memories of refusing my mother’s offers of Coppertone at the beach, arguing that sunscreen was only for people with a fair complexion to protect. I risked my bare skin, daring the sun to do its worst, stubborn in the belief that it was impossible for me to get any darker. I can only approximate the surprise—and horror!—I felt a few hours later, when I came face to face with a mirror and saw the outline of a swimsuit stamped resolutely on my body. It was my punishment for defiance, I was certain.
Submission came quickly afterwards, although not quite as obviously. I remember accidentally peeling a scab on my knee and discovering the tiny, white shape of a scar underneath. I was amazed. It is silly to admit it now, but at the time I dreamed of one day removing this scar of a dark covering and finally—finally!—discovering white skin underneath. So it had been hiding inside me all this time, I thought excitedly. Perhaps then it was just a matter of waiting for that one moment of redemption. My turn would come, I told myself. All I had to do was wait.
And in the years that followed, I did. But for all my anticipation, nothing came. Instead, a lot of things changed. I am not quite sure how it happened. I blinked, and suddenly the game was no more. The teasing faded, disappeared altogether. Jokes turned into praises, pieces of advice into honest queries. I grew up, and suddenly I wasn’t the ugly duckling anymore.
Perhaps they had tired of the old game. Maybe it had gone out of fashion, or was no longer the custom. Exactly when it disappeared, I did not notice. Then again, it might just be because they had found someone else. I wonder if they had simply grown tired of me, or if I had finally changed enough to merit their disinterest. Perhaps both. I ask myself: does it really matter? I would never know.
A couple of years ago, I stumbled on half an answer. It was December of 2008. We had accepted my uncle’s invitation to spend the week with them in Cebu and nearby Bohol. Aboard the plane, I envisioned white beaches, fresh seafood, tarsiers, and of course, the famed chocolate hills. I was excited. Traveling my own country seemed like a good way to spend the holidays.
At the resort, our rented huts stood closely together, situated only a few meters away from the pools and the open sea. We emerged from our rooms decked in swimsuits and ready for the beach. After much hesitation, I decided to wear my only bikini, covered with a skirt. I emerged from our hut feeling self-conscious and more than a bit embarrassed. I was alone. My family had opted to stay inside the room, too exhausted from the trip. Walking away from our hut, I encountered Aunt Gerlie and her eldest daughter, already on their way to the beach. We trudged up the sandy path together, our flip-flops slapping the ground in excited rhythm. In the distance, the sea glistened in the heat of the sun.
“Achi Michelle, you’re so slim!” Gemberlie gushed.
I looked down at myself and waved her compliments away. I regretted wearing the bikini.
“Don’t worry, Gem. You’ll also get thinner,” her mother assured her. “Remember, your cousin was also fat before. Isn’t that right, Michelle?”
My back stiffened, but I smiled at Gemberlie and answered, “Yes, of course. Just wait until you grow taller!”
She protested, saying that she’s already much taller than me. I knew she was right, but I pretended not to hear. My mind was already far away. I sunk my feet in the sand and thought silently to myself: of course.
-----
It’s sometimes funny the way life works, for just when I was absolutely certain that I could never be beautiful, the people around me started to perceive me differently. The year was 2007, and I had just entered university. I met new friends, who had not grown up in a Chinese setting, who laughed at me when I called myself dark. They thought I was kidding. I became notorious for arguing with people whenever they gave me compliments. I could not help myself; I was not used to the attention.
I had a few theories, foremost among them being the simple fact that I was Chinese. I assumed that my Filipino friends took interest in me because I was different from them, because they were not familiar with my features. This argument was immediately shot down by friends who had also gone to Chinese schools. Many of them insisted that they had seen enough of us to be able to judge well, and they wondered why I kept probing them for reasons, why I could not simply accept their compliments for what they were. I could give them no honest reply.
The truth was, I suspected them of mocking me. I remember feeling disturbed whenever someone gave me a compliment, because I could not determine whether it was made sincerely or in jest. It was not until after my sophomore year that I began to feel more secure about myself. I learned to accept compliments more gracefully (although still not as graciously as others), not because I felt I deserved them, but because by then I knew enough about my friends to know that they would not mock me.
For a time I wondered if this meant that my family had a different set of standards from my friends, if I was somehow good enough for one but not the other. Curious, I paid more attention to offhand remarks during family gatherings, and sure enough, I noticed that even these had changed. My appearance was no longer a topic of interest, save for a few comments now and then. Maybe it was around this point that they lost interest in me, or in the game. Either way, this left me feeling very unsettled. I was honestly a bit relieved, grateful even, but more than anything else I remember feeling unsettled. From then on I would always be on my toes, wary and waiting, wondering if there was a hitch to this, and when it would catch up with me. In the years that followed, I would find out.
-----
It is the eve of 2010. I am standing beside my cousin, watching the fireworks. A few relatives have come over to celebrate the New Year. We have already eaten dinner and are dutifully lined along the terrace, conversing and laughing, wine glasses tinkling in our hands. Amid the noise, my father holds his glass up to me and says, “You know, you really shouldn’t stand beside Stephanie. The contrast makes you look even darker.”
Something stirs within me, but I ignore it. My jaw drops in mock offense, and I take a step away from my cousin. Jokingly, I put my hands on my hips. Leveling my eyes with my father’s, I chuckle and threaten to abandon fixing his laptop. “Oh no, not that,” he replies, waving his hand around to recant his comment.
The crowd laughs heartily, and my aunt slaps him lightly on the shoulder. I smile as I watch them tease each other in Chinese, and it was then that I realize my mistake: the game never did completely disappear. It was just me, after all. It was I who had been changing all along. I lean against the banister and take a sip of wine. Behind me, the fireworks continue their celebration.
-----
Christmas, the week before: we are at City Best restaurant, taking pictures with each other after a satisfying meal. My two uncles take on the role of director, and the children shuffle around the room according to their instructions. I am busying myself with a camera when my eldest cousin Ireen grabs me by the arm and plants me against a wall. Gemberlie and Geslyn soon follow, unable to resist Ireen’s firm resolve.
Our other family members gather around us, their cameras poised and ready. I remember thinking that we must have looked quite strange, four girls lined up against a carpeted wall. We all feel awkward, except for Ireen, who is demonstrating various poses for us to imitate. My uncles laugh at me as I slap my forehead in embarrassment. Someone tells us to hurry up, and Ireen resorts to moving our bodies for us. She lifts our hands to our waists and instructs us to bend our knees at an angle. Geslyn, the youngest, is the last to surrender. Ireen fusses around her a bit more before settling herself beside me. The cameras huddle around us.
I feel embarrassed, but I find myself laughing and enjoying the moment. I know we probably look like fools, but suddenly I do not care. I remember smiling at the camera, my body twisted in a pose imitating my cousin’s. The flash blinds us for a moment. My smile lingers just a little longer than usual, and I think, it is not so hard after all.
~ THE END ~
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