Kina Shen / Instagram (16 Dec 2016)
The Chinese still like to think they are a people apart, with their own unique aesthetic ideals - including ideals of what constitutes female beauty. But, actually, when one examines these ideals, be they Taoist or Confucian in origin, one finds they don't greatly differ from those that have been cherished amongst other peoples, in other times and other parts of the world.
For example, they think that girls with large eyes are very beautiful; particularly if the eyes have a double-fold lid (often achieved by cosmetic surgery), similar to the eyes of Westerners. The Chinese also value porcelain white skin and fine, delicate features, believing as they do that these physical traits reflect an inner moral dimension or natural nobility. Finally, when it comes to hair, the Chinese like it to be long, shiny, dark, and soft.
Those big-bodied blondes, with their fake tans and fake tits that so many Western men seem attracted to, are regarded as ugly and vulgar within the erotico-aesthetic that determines the Sino-pornographic imagination. And so it's not surprising to find that one of the most popular models in China today is 25-year-old Kina Shen, who prides herself on her hyperreal doll-like appearance, with eyes that are bigger-than-big, skin that is paler-than-pale, a body that is slimmer-than-slim, and hair that is sleeker-than-sleek.
Even though I don't view the world through Chinese eyes, she's certainly extraordinary looking and clearly a very talented make-up artist which, I suppose, makes her fully deserving of her huge following on social media, including 634k followers on Instagram [click here if interested in becoming one of them].
And even though I'm not a smoking fetishist, I admire the fact that Kina Shen often poses with a cigarette - something that now seems exotic and transgressive here in the West, where people have become so obsessed about their health that they've sacrificed style and forgotten the importance of living dangerously. I also like her attempts at philosophizing about the gothic nature of her being, as in this astonishing remark posted online:
"All this time I thought I was dark, but maybe I was wrong. I cannot stay away from darkness, because it needs me. Because I am the light it craves ... So maybe I am not cursed, but blessed with a dark kind of light."
To watch Kina Shen giving a YouTube make-up tutorial on how to achieve her big eye look, click here.
For example, they think that girls with large eyes are very beautiful; particularly if the eyes have a double-fold lid (often achieved by cosmetic surgery), similar to the eyes of Westerners. The Chinese also value porcelain white skin and fine, delicate features, believing as they do that these physical traits reflect an inner moral dimension or natural nobility. Finally, when it comes to hair, the Chinese like it to be long, shiny, dark, and soft.
Those big-bodied blondes, with their fake tans and fake tits that so many Western men seem attracted to, are regarded as ugly and vulgar within the erotico-aesthetic that determines the Sino-pornographic imagination. And so it's not surprising to find that one of the most popular models in China today is 25-year-old Kina Shen, who prides herself on her hyperreal doll-like appearance, with eyes that are bigger-than-big, skin that is paler-than-pale, a body that is slimmer-than-slim, and hair that is sleeker-than-sleek.
Even though I don't view the world through Chinese eyes, she's certainly extraordinary looking and clearly a very talented make-up artist which, I suppose, makes her fully deserving of her huge following on social media, including 634k followers on Instagram [click here if interested in becoming one of them].
And even though I'm not a smoking fetishist, I admire the fact that Kina Shen often poses with a cigarette - something that now seems exotic and transgressive here in the West, where people have become so obsessed about their health that they've sacrificed style and forgotten the importance of living dangerously. I also like her attempts at philosophizing about the gothic nature of her being, as in this astonishing remark posted online:
"All this time I thought I was dark, but maybe I was wrong. I cannot stay away from darkness, because it needs me. Because I am the light it craves ... So maybe I am not cursed, but blessed with a dark kind of light."
To watch Kina Shen giving a YouTube make-up tutorial on how to achieve her big eye look, click here.
