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U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

Blepharoplasty

Yesterday, when I was teaching at my part-time job, a girl walked in to my class wearing sunglasses even though it was 8:00 in the evening. She apologized for being late and then sat down as if nothing were odd about her sporting shades indoors during class and at night.

When I asked her what was going on, she said that she had just had "double eyelid surgery" the day before. I have heard about this popular phenomenon here in China as most of my female students (and my roommate) want to get this done. Since the other students (all female) in the class also wanted to have this surgery and I was extremely curious about the whole process, we spent the rest of the class talking about the procedure and cosmetic surgery in general.


Double eyelid surgery is also called "blepharoplasty" and is the process in which the skin around the eye is reshaped in order to create an upper eyelid with a crease. Many Chinese women want to not only have this second crease but they also want to have "bigger-looking eyes." At least once a day, a Chinese student or friend comments to me on the shape of my eyes saying things like, "I want your eyes", "your eyes are so big", "how do you grow your long eyelashes" etc. It's pretty out of control.

The issue of eye size is hard to understand for me as I grew up in a place where we don't really talk about eyes. But here, talking about eyes is extremely common. For example, when describing other people in China, it's common for a Chinese to say something like "she has really small eyes" or "he has big eyes." My roommate, Qin Chen, is convinced that she has particularly small eyes and is very disappointed and self-conscious about them. To insult her, her other Chinese friends say things like, "Qin Chen, where are your eyes? I can't see them!"
Because of this, the eye surgery business is booming and while "Nancy", my student with the sunglasses and new eyelids, explained the process my other students leaned in eagerly to hear what she had to say. Nancy said that the procedure took about 30 minutes and didn't involve full anaesthesia - they just numbed her eyes. It cost about 1000 RMB (about $155) which is a lot when most twenty-something females in China make about 2000-3000 RMB/month. Nancy said that it didn't really hurt that much and that she will be able to go sans sunglasses in just two days. She did take them off to let us see her new eyelids and there was much oohing and aahing around the table. She was very happy with the result and recommended the surgery to the others with full confidence.

We went around the table talking about what kinds of surgery each student wanted. Some examples that they wanted were to change the shape of their face from round to oval, getting a "higher" nose and getting breast implants. When I asked Nancy if she could see better with her new eyes she said that she didn't notice any difference; she said she just wanted to do the surgery for the way it looks. At the end of class my students kept exclaiming how lucky I was that I was born with natural double eyelids. While I assured them that I thought the Asian look was gorgeous, sleek and beautiful and that they shouldn't change a thing, they just waved me away and said I didn't understand. They're right, I don't.

Read More 24 comments | Posted by Sarah Sanderson edit post

24 comments

  1. Elizabeth on May 16, 2011 at 10:46 AM

    I found your blog somehow a few weeks ago and have been reading it... hope that is ok! Posts like this and your speech on cultural differences are so interesting. Thanks for sharing!

     
  2. Cara Maat on May 16, 2011 at 7:16 PM

    it's amazing the things we all have in common with one another- no matter the cultural difference. yet- it saddens me that the common thing is the fact that we are disatisfied with how we were made. It is so cool that you were able to engage in conversation with the students-- giving them a safe place to communicate what they think and feel. It's been so fun to read your blog Sarah! :)

     
  3. Bethany G on May 17, 2011 at 9:00 AM

    It is so funny how these girls find fault with their eyes - I happen to think that Asian eyes are gorgeous. Thanks for talking about it. We miss you! :)

     
  4. Allie Yaeger on September 9, 2011 at 5:33 PM

    In Asian countries, people see beauty in wider eyes. It's difficult to change a mindset that's ingrained deep inside a culture. To each his or her own.

     
  5. Laser Northern Virginia on September 6, 2012 at 1:28 PM

    Hi There, I just spent a little time reading through your posts, which I found entirely by mistake whilst researching one of my projects. Please continue to write more because it’s unusual that someone has something interesting to say about this. Will be waiting for more!

     
  6. Unknown on October 23, 2012 at 2:15 PM

    Well, sometimes, people yearn for the things that they don’t have, case in point are the eyes. Some people with small eyes want to have bigger eyes, and vice versa. There really is nothing wrong with wanting to change what you have for you to be happier, as long as you have your means to achieve it and would not contradict your beliefs in life. At the end of it all, what’s important is to be happy with what you have and what you have become.

    Judith Arends

     
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    I am currently in Mandarin language training as a new diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. Sean and I depart for Wuhan, China in November 2019 for my first tour in consular affairs.
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