How To Disappear Completely

Sexy and Beautiful

One of my fellow graduate students is Chinese. Her name is Snow. Sitting next to her in class is always an aesthetic experience. As Brae has noted, the Chinese ARE gracefulness and beauty.

Yesterday, Snow gave a presentation on Edward Said and his analysis of Orientalism, or the Idea of the East that the West creates for itself. Besides feeding us drinks and sweets (rice paper fruit paste cookies, on the one hand, and fortune cookies--orientalized food--on the other), she gave everyone a name card with our names in Chinese, and a postcard with a picture that depicted some aspect she had tried to match with our personalities. Mine was a picture of a graceful Chinese woman, in pen-and-ink. "'Sarah' [the name] reminds me of Sharon Stone," Snow said, "so I gave you a sexy and beautiful picture."

I was extremely touched.