In China, there is this phenomenon that closely resembles shopping mall Glamour Shots of the 1990s. There are tons of boutiques set up all over Wuhan (and the rest of China) where you go in, get your hair and makeup done, and then take pictures in clothes that they provide for you. Since our arrival, we have all been joking about going and getting our pictures taken in traditional Chinese outfits before we leave. Well, Olga left on Friday, July 20th, so we finally took the pictures.
Four of us ended up in the studio: Olga, Erin, Angie and me. Olga dressed herself in a Manchurian style blue outfit, Erin was in a sea foam green qipao, Angie wore a red and black dress in the traditional Han Chinese style, and I wore the orange version of Olga’s outfit. These outfits would have been more varied if Chinese people were built with hips or buts, yet, seeing how that was not the case, Erin’s narrow hips were the only ones that could shimmy into a qipao. Angie’s dress didn’t actually zip up the back, so the ladies in the studio pinned it together with a neon pink scarf and hoped that no one would notice. Me and Olga? Well, we were wearing the traditional Chinese versions of potato sacks, so squeezing in wasn’t really an issue.
After costume selection, we each sat in the magical chair and had our makeup professionally applied and our hair gelled, twisted, prodded, and bee-hived to perfection. One of the makeup artist’s techniques was to match the eye makeup to the color of our dresses. She put white and green on Erin’s dark brown skin; not the best plan. She had to do Erin’s eye makeup twice since between the poor color choices and Erin’s fear of having her eye gauged out, the whole thing was a mess. On my eyes, the orange is less obvious than Olga’s blue, but she did use a Chinese eye technique on me. In China, there is a beauty characteristic that has become prized above others- the double eyelid (which non-Asians have). I guess one of my eyes was not pronounced enough, so she used a thin piece of plastic tape to create a crease. I didn’t realize what she was doing until after the shoot and I was taking my makeup (mostly my neon pink lipstick) off.
In terms of hair, she took my freshly washed and dried hair, combed it with gel and made what can only be described as an ancient Chinese “poof.” Using my somewhat backwards Chinese skills, I explained that I thought it looked a bit strange, and hoped for something different. You may notice that my hair is nice and flat in the final pictures. Also, on my head was a rolled piece of wig and a number of little Chinese braids – two of which create the lovely rattail affect. I got off easy, Olga got 4 or 5 little braids!
Taking the pictures was a feat on its own. The photographer kept telling me to open my eyes more – make them BIGGER, and to close my mouth a bit when I smiled, because a big smile was not attractive. I could see why he wouldn’t want to show his teeth since they were a strange color and all crooked, but every time he gave me the instruction, I would laugh and cause a bigger smile. With Angie, who was dressed more elegantly than the rest of us, he kept telling her to open her mouth for the photos. Not so that we could see her tonsils, but so that she looked more seductive – this process ultimately had the same result as me - laughter. Erin’s (equally ineffective) tactic to get Angie to look seductive was “Imagine I’m Leon (Angie’s boyfriend). Imagine you are taking these pictures for Leon.” He was also big into using props; I had an umbrella, a fan, a basket, a “lucky” Chinese golden nugget, and firecrackers – Erin even had a flute!
Overall, the experience is one that is unforgettable. We paid a mere 88 元 per person and received 8 Photoshop-ed prints of our choosing (from 20 poses), 2 Photoshop-ed prints of our group poses and a disc with those 10 poses on it. Points of interest: they airbrushed away my freckles, but left my hair out of place. Well, that’s not entirely true… When Erin and Angie went back to the place to pick up our discs, Erin distracted the shop girls and Angie copied the rest of our photos onto a thumb drive. So we cheat a bit? What were they going to do with those photos anyway??
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