Women's Day: the time they dressed me up like a Tang dynasty concubine

I have a theory: for all of us masochists studying Asian languages, there's a backstory. After all, there must be a deep, psychological motivation that propels us through the interminable pain and suffering--or at least that's what I tell myself.

My story goes back at least 14 years. When I was around 8 years old, my grandmother gave me a beautiful porcelain Japanese doll, complete with a kimono and a paper umbrella. She was a "look-and-see"* doll that came with her very own glass case, and even had a small ceramic cup for water to humidify the air. From the moment they brought her to my room, I was completely enamored. While I had no shortage of dolls throughout my childhood, she was and remains my favorite. 

This fascination with all things Asian manifested itself in many ways. For example, did you know that inside the top of those cheap, miniature paper umbrellas is a small roll of Chinese newspaper? I used to rip them apart in order to find it. Worse yet, I once pulled at the corners of my eyes and said "look, I'm Chinese!" While my older sister accused me of being racist, my mother chalked it up to innocent curiosity. She likely assumed that it was just a passing phase. Little did she know that years later, I'd be dating a Filipino and living in China. Sorry about that, Mom. 

So back to the point: today is Women's Day, and the museum had some celebratory activities. One of them was having women from the Education Department dress up 美女 měinǚ , or "beauties" from the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The idea was to show the public traditional dress and makeup from the period, and then allow them to take pictures. After some coercion, yours truly participated.

As I was sitting there this morning being coated in more makeup than I've worn in my entire life (accumulatively), I felt very much like a china doll. And then I realized: in spite of the pain and mortification, a childhood dream of mine was coming true. As a kid, I would have done absolutely anything for the chance to wear blue robes and matching eye makeup. And so, with that in mind, I embraced it. 

As you may have guessed, there was no shortage of photographs with museum visitors. People were a bit confused by the foreigner with the other four Chinese women--not even two inches of makeup could adequately camouflage me. While I forgot my camera, should my supervisor send over a photo, I suppose I'll have to post it. While I hate to give you all ammunition, it's too good not to share. In the meantime, you can use your imaginations. And yes, I daresay it's just as good/if not better than what you're envisioning.

So yes, today they dressed me up as an 8th century concubine and put me on display. But at least I can tick that off my list. After all, it's more plausible than becoming a famous artist or learning how to fly. And sadly, I think the former is even less likely than the latter.

If any of you have "My discovery of Asia" stories that you'd like to share, please post them below. In the meantime, Happy Women's Day!

* I feel that I should mention here how it wasn't until recently that I realized that "look-and-see" isn't a ubiquitous term, but rather one that my mother coined to keep us from touching/destroying my grandmother's breakables. Genius, no?


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Addendum:

I can't believe that I'm going to show you these, but as promised, here's a selection of photographs from the Women's Day Event. First, I'm going to include a chart of how makeup is applied in the Tang Dynasty:

And here's a video of the experience! (Thanks, Danielle)

Okay... fine. Here are the actual photos:

Beauties heading into the museum
(Did I forget to mention the "hairdos" before? Oh yeah. That's right.)

Us+crowd. We're popular.

Getting dolled-up.

Posing for the 100th photo

My beautiful supervisor Monica

Tang dynasty beauties in front of Tang-style museum