Half What?!

Holly Jean's Musings...

On Being Ethnically Diversed
I remember as a kid, feeling very indignant about having to tick the box which labelled me as "Others" instead of the usual Chinese, Malay, or Indian here in Singapore.

And then somehow along the way, I just settled, and got used to it.

But I just got back from the bank where I had to co-sign something. And when checking my details on the form, and again.. my race labelled under "Others", it occurred to me that no matter who I marry (whether it's White, Black, Chinese or any other race) , my kids are always going to be "others" too.

You cannot un-mix someone. You can dilute an ethnic gene through generations of racially planned marriages, but you cannot erase it. Once you are mixed... you cannot produce an ethnically pure baby, no matter who you marry.

In a world where mixed race people are considered exotic and more attractive... is my "predicatment" such a bad thing afterall? Would I want to be purely Chinese or purely Portuguese or any other One Race?

No, not really.

I should make the best of it, embrace my ethnic diversity, and look forward to creating children who are not limited by ethnic boundaries.

So, if this is the way it goes... won't we one day have to do away with racial labelling? I'm sure the time will finally come when a majority of people are ticking the "Others" box when it comes to race... and it would no longer be viable to segregate/ identify people based a pure race.



On how my babies will look
Out of curiosity, vanity and the fact that I've been clucking a lot lately, I went to http://www.faceresearch.org/ to figure out what my babies would look like if I married my BF Mark.

But the site requires one to plot all the damn points on the photo for mapping and grids. Not only is this tedious, but also impossible to get right. So the baby I created ended up having lop sided eyes and funny face, even E.T. was better looking than this kid!

But if we try to figure this out in a logical way... I think my babies will likely be brown eyed ( because my brown eyes are more dominant than Mark's Blue eyes), the eyes are likely to be big and not slant (none of us have slant or small eyes in our family), tanned skin (probably a colour in between my skin tone and Mark's), brown hair, sharp features (if it's a girl, she'll probably get my long angular face, if it's a boy, he'll probably get Mark's face shape), slim lips (both Mark and I don't have thick lips) , unlikely to be hairy (though Mark has hair on his chest... which I like, on a man).

How exciting! :) And we've already decided to name the baby Destiny, if it's a girl. I want it to be Destiny Leonara (but I haven't sold Mark on the Leonara part yet!) Boy's name.. not really sure yet (maybe Declan... but am open to suggestions).

On mixed race people looking better than average

What makes mixed babies look appealing is human being's natural inclination to be repulsed from people who are too similar to ourselves (we needed this eons ago to prevent inbreeding), and that we are naturally drawn to people who look different or unique (exotic?).

Take a look at model Devon Aoki
Heidi Klum's mixed children
Are these mixed people Stunningly beautiful? I know it's subjective, but I'd put some money on the fact that they're not. What they are though.. is different. And that is their appeal.

Walking about town, I've been discreetly surveying kids from mixed parents lately, and I'd say almost half the time, these mixed race kids are just normal looking (not stunning). When the kids were ugly, the parents are not great lookers themselves ( like you can see the kids got the Droopy eyes from the mom, or flat nose from the dad.. that sort of thing). So being of mixed race does not automatically make you a better looking person than someone of a pure race.

It's Not A Recipe! We're human beings, not food. We cannot really determine which dominant genes will come into play or how much of each ethnicity will go into that genetic blender.

On thing's for sure... Ugly doesn't discriminate. You can have ugly babies whether you are of a pure race or of mixed race.

----------------------------------

P/S- I know... I still owe you guys
1. Free Ettusais MakeOvers
2. That secret Ab exercise
3. ASK Holly Jean answers

and just to add to my growing list of IOUs

4. A video of my brazilian wax ( wax appointment this Monday) [No, not porn-ish, but more of an info-review, but you'll be with me throughout the waxing process]
5. review of a new artsy (and yummy!) dessert shop you'll love
6. Launch of a new website where I'm writing a weekly column

Stay tuned :)