Single Lady

I was preparing my lesson by placing several poorly hand-drawn pictures on the board when one of my students points to a picture of a blond girl and says “Teacher, you”. I laughed because she’s only assigning me the picture because of the hair color, and she points to a picture of a boy and says “Teacher, boyfriend.” I laugh a little harder and say no, no. So she points to another picture of a boy with different colored hair and says again “Teacher, boyfriend?” Good thinking, I tell them I don’t have a boyfriend. The student then points to another picture and asks “Teacher, girlfriend?”

I love my students.

When I studied in Senegal, I often lied about my relationship status jumping to already being married in hopes that it would deter the marriage proposal that was about to spill from the mouths of Senegalese men. For fun I even told them that I had four husbands (since they are allowed to take four wives) just to see the shock on their face as the thought about the switched gender roles.

In Thailand I may use the “boyfriend” line to deter a random songtao driver or food vendor, but I don’t lie to my coworkers or students. When the words “I don’t have a boyfriend” are understood, frankly everyone’s appalled. “But you’re so beautiful” is the usual argument against my single status.

Not to toot my own horn but I’ve been told I’m beautiful almost every day at my school. The word has unfortunately lost a lot of its power. Simply being a blond foreigner who’s in shape is enough to make me qualify as Miss America; although, once I scraped up my knees my coworkers informed me that the dream of Miss America is now dead.

Beauty is a tough concept to grapple with. The media is filled with advertisements for whitening creams because conversely to America, white and pale is beautiful. At least my teachers don’t go so far as calling me “ugly” when I return from a weekend outdoors but they have comments like: “Oh Kendra. So much sun” with a clear look of disappointment that I would do such a thing to my body.

Thais are very blunt about your appearance: if your dress makes you look like a teenager, if your hair is “not so beautiful today as it was yesterday”, or if you’re “fat, fat, fat, fat, fat…”

Stateside, if I wore a new shirt and received a few compliments throughout the day that would make me so happy and want to wear it again. When I wear a new shirt here, if I don’t get multiple compliments on it then it’s considered an ugly shirt and won’t likely wear it again.

A favorite moment on my birthday was among all the birthday wishes stood one teacher who said “Kendra, I wish you happy for your birthday….And I wish you make a boyfriend this year.”

Priorities. I’m 23, single, and beautiful… get to it, Kendra.