Why are Taiwanese girls so hot? - the secret of Taiwan beauty

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 Once I read a blog in which a mainland Chinese girl asked: "Why are all Taiwanese girls so pretty?"

Well, of course, not all of them are pretty. There are, however, astoundingly many. If you've ever been to Taipei you might have been shocked by the number of hot girls going around here. And if you've ever been to a night club, for example in Zhongxiao Fuxing or Taipei City Hall, then you - and by you, I mean you foreign guy - might have deemed yourself in paradise.

So, what's the secret of Taiwanese girls? Has the weather or their DNA bestowed upon them unmatched beauty? It would be great it were so. But the story is quite different.

I have an English friend, I'l call him James. He came to Taiwan to teach English, and as many foreigners he also ended up going to night clubs every week. At first he may have done that out of loneliness. Yet as soon as he got there and saw the crowds of hotties eager to talk to 'white guys', he became pretty much addicted to Taipei's nightlife.

James isn't particularly handsome. He is tall and gaunt build, and his face is thin and long. He has a butch haircut and a small nose. His eyes, themselves not very big, appear even bigger behind thick-lenses, thick-frame glasses which give him a nerdy look. He's a nice and sweet guy, but quite shy. Definitely not the kind of person who is very successful with women in Europe.

To his surprise, he soon discovered that in Taiwan girls find him attractive. He's white, exotic and speaks English. Often this is enough for a Taiwanese girl to start chasing after a guy. They were not only hot and nice: they were pretty fast, too. On his second night in a club he was chatted up by a cute Taiwanese.

It was Halloween. A wild party was going on. Career women and students, tired of a long and exhausting Asian-style working week wanted to relax and enjoy themselves. He was sitting at the bar drinking a beer. By European standards, he looked like a loser. Suddenly, a girl talked to him. She was tall, had a slim waist, long slender legs and smooth light skin. Her face was long, with full lips, cat-like slant eyes and long black hair. She was wearing a Super Mario costume: a low-cut, tight-fitting, sleeveless blue top with red races, a red Polka mini-skirt, red and blue socks that reached to her knees, high-heel shoes and on top of her head a red Super Mario hat. He started talking to him, asking him questions such as: 'are you single?', 'do you like Asian girls?' and so on. Every now and then she touched his arm and shoulder. James couldn't believe she was flirting so openly. After an hour they went to her flat.

James and Super Mario got together. She had probably been after a foreign boyfriend from the outset. One morning the inevitable happened. She woke up and removed her make-up. That was the moment when James realized one thing. Beauty in Taiwan is relative. Without long eyelashes, face powder and contact lenses that made her eyes look bigger, her face was completely different. She wasn't pretty at all. Poor James was shocked.

Following the Japanese fashion, in Taiwan make-up has developed into an art of its own. In a society obsessed with beauty (a girl might be rebuked by her boss if she shows up at work without make-up  because it's considered rude) girls who don't like how they look like try to improve their appearance with the help of cosmetics. Their technique is often so sophisticated that they are unrecognizable. The following video, taken from a popular Taiwanese TV show, will illustrate what I mean.

James and Super Mario are still a couple. But he doesn't seem very happy. After getting what she wanted she stopped wearing make-up when she's with him. I got the impression that he doesn't like her and one day they'll break up.

Is it such a good idea to hide your real face behind a mask, after all? 

Yumiko