Hairy Legs in Thailand
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Bangkok. It’s beginning to feel like we live here now.
Hairy Legs in Thailand
Note: This little contemplation has been sitting on my computer for four years, but since my cast came off week before last, the extremely random topic of leg-hair management has been much on my mind. Wearing a cast for six weeks, it turns out, does a real number on a leg—the muscles shrink, while the hair grows. And grows.
After two and a half years of travel, I frequently forget about shaving my legs. Sometimes I don't even notice they need it until they start scratching me in my sleep. I've begun to wonder why this is, remembering how, when I was younger, leg hair maintenance was just part of my mental routine. I had a constant calendar running in my head—when was the last time, how do they look/feel, and what else is going on in my life that would impact the shaving schedule? Is it warm enough for shorts? Do I need to wear (god forbid) pantyhose tomorrow?
Is my current lack of interest a function of deteriorating eyesight? Is it because I'm in perimenopause, and the hair is actually growing more slowly, needing less upkeep? Is it because I rarely have access to a full-length mirror, so I'm just less aware of how I look?
It's not because my legs are covered up, because they almost never are. I actually wear shorts year-round now, which I was never able to do when we lived in the US.
Is it because I'm finally (finally!) maturing enough that I don't care what I look like?
That would be nice.
But I think it's more complicated than that. I do care what I look like, very much. I'm writing this in Cairo, where nearly every day, I've double-checked my appearance with a local—are these shorts okay, or do I need to wear a skirt? Long sleeves? A head scarf? Mostly the answer has been no, of course not. Don't worry about it—shorts are fine. But I've had to wear an ankle-length skirt a couple of days, and I did spend about half an hour boiling to death, my head swathed in a silk scarf that I had knitted, intending it to keep air-conditioning off my shoulders. (Note: hand-knits, no matter what the yarn, are too hot for head-coverings when it's a hundred degrees.)
My concern on those days, though, was less about looking cute, and more about not offending anyone or breaking any rules. Actually, cute wasn't a factor at all. My priorities were simply a) don't be a jerk, and b) don't boil to death.
I guess I'm thinking about appearance differently now. Instead of obsessing over whether people will look at me and like me, which is about me, I think more about how my appearance affects other people. I've tried to turn the gaze outwards, away from myself, toward others. It's still about me to a certain extent, because ultimately I do dress myself every morning, but now I think about my appearance primarily as it impacts the people around me.
I can’t really know what impact my presence has, but I can at least recognize that other people see me from their own perspectives, through their own filters and experiences.
Will the waiter in the restaurant see a person who is here to take advantage of local resources, local bargains, my privilege as a western/white/wealthy tourist? Will the woman walking her children to school see a person who is greedy, exploitative, superior, timid, frightened, racist? Will the teenagers getting out of school think I'm just here to get drunk because flights were cheap? Does the person sitting next to me in the tea shop think foreigners care only about ancient history, rather than the lives of the people who live here today? Is my presence a negative, or a positive?
I don't blend in—I never will, outside of my own country, and it's not my shoes or my socks or any other clothing choice that makes me stand out—but my appearance says volumes about whether I am respectful of local customs, whether I am friendly and approachable, whether I am aloof, stand-offish, whether I am determined to stay in my protected tourist bubble, or whether I'm open to some point of contact, no matter how fleeting, with the actual people who live here, where I am the outsider.
[2021 Covid update: We were in a crowded mall here in Bangkok the other day, for about two hours. During that time, we saw a total of two people who were not wearing masks—a white couple. The throngs of Thai people? All wearing their masks. It’s the law here, but it’s also basic human courtesy in a collectivist society. When I was a child, the United States Air Force taught me in no uncertain terms that I represented my country, & should therefore always be on my best behavior; I have never quite been able to let go of that early learning. As a visitor to Thailand, I feel heavy responsibility to represent America/white people/westerners/the global north. I cringe when I see people who look like me behaving badly.
I suspect my physical therapist cringed even harder when she saw my leg that first time, when my cast came off. I just hope she’s not having nightmares about it.]
Take care,
Lisa
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