Image Credits: Chai Mo, Click With Chai
You know what’s worse than finding your first grey pube?
Finding your second one.
When I first spotted that glint down South a year ago, I was in the midst of toweling myself dry after a shower and inspecting the fuzz to see if was time for a Brazilian yet. Mmm, I furrowed my brows, was that what I think it was or was it just the light bouncing off a jet black curl?
I took a hand-held mirror, propped it unceremoniously in front of my hoohah, and craned my neck as I twisted my torso from side to side to spot this mythical grey pube.
Sure enough, there it was.
Like watching a train wreck or one of those horrifying pimple popping videos, I couldn’t take my eyes off it as my other hand fumbled around for my trusty pair of tweezers. And just as satisfying as watching a five-year old blackhead erupt and ooze out under the telescopic camera, I pulled out that little fucker swiftly and decidedly in one swoop.
Here’s where things got surreal.
As the sole silver strand glistened defiantly in between the tweezer’s prongs, I was absolutely enthralled. My first instinct was to run to my mum with the offensive strand, like a cat bringing a dead mouse to its owner and say “look Mummy, it’s here!”. But of course that wasn’t an actual possibility since she’s dead and I didn’t think my siblings would appreciate my candor with the same enthusiasm. I kept twirling it around and studying this silver specimen as so many questions ran through my head.
How long has it been there for? Was it a regular hair that died and turned white? Or did it grow out as grey? Is it a one-off? Will it grow back? Have I been missing it all this while because I keep waxing it off? Did any guy notice it down there and not say a single word to me???
As it danced in the light, the grey curl was in all honesty – minuscule. Yet all of its 3 cm glory managed to stir up a brew of disgust, fascination, worry and pride which could be summed up in a single statement: How dare it show up so early at my age!
You bet I’d never missed a single Brazilian appointment after that.
If finding the first grey pube was an encounter defined by morbid fascination, spotting the second silver strand a year later was an existential crisis. It didn’t help either that it came on the back of an intentional decision to be celibate for a couple of months after my last break-up. I’d been very lucky with my last lovers and didn’t want to dive into any affair that would be a lesser experience. So I got on my self-imposed dry spell and carried on life au natural. Until last week, where yet again I found myself naked on a towel after a shower and wondering if I should defuzz myself before my annual solo birthday jaunt.
And there it was – or should I say, there they were.
I’d grown accustomed to the OG grey pube and knew exactly where it made its home. So I took my tweezers out and deftly kicked it out without any hesitation. Ah, but the second one… did my mind conjure it up just because I was on the last vestige of my 30’s?
He – yes, a ‘he’ because the grey pube popped up just like an ex would “just to say hi” right when you’ve gotten over the heartache and moved on – was harder to get rid of. (See, just like an ex!) I hemmed and hawed contorting myself to find this one sucker to pull him out. This guy? Nope, it’s a black strand. This one? Nope, just the light bouncing off it. Here? Mmm, close but no. Shit I really ought to get my Brazilian appointment done, regardless of whether my vulva was receiving visitors or not.
Finally my tweezers found its mark and just like a sniper, took him out in a swift motion. Did I twirl his silver body around after that like the OG as a warning to the rest? Maybe, but I’ll be lying if there wasn’t an ounce of the strange fascination and pride at this stray alien pubic hair I grew. But there was a new sentiment thrown into the mix too that I didn’t expect: anger.
I was fucking angry at getting old.
“Age is just a number.”
“It’s all in the mind.”
“You’re only as old as you feel”
That’s how I found myself a week later seated in a random Danang hair salon fussed over by four gruff male stylists with Vietnamese techno blasting in the background. It was the eve of my birthday and true to form, I made the semi-spontaneous decision the day before my flight to ’buang suay’ (‘throw out the bad luck’) with a new colour and cut. While Tripadvisor lauded it as the 5-stars place to go in this tiny city for the best service, my anxiety wasn’t assuaged when I was greeted at the door by a Gen Z in a Hawaiian shirt and his Google Translate app.
“Xin chào, hôm nay bạn muốn làm gì?” (“Hello what you want to do today?”)
“Can you travel back in time and give me back the Rin of 5 years ago?”
I kid, I kid… I might as well take the express train to 22 year old Rin and start again.
There is nothing more humbling than sitting directly in front of a full-length mirror at the hair salon for five straight hours under fluorescent lighting. Let alone on the day before I turn 39 with a shower cap on my head and limp noodles of hair saturated with dye poking out of it.
Each reflection of every pore and blemish, the resident double chin, the round tummy poking out under the plastic apron, and the puffiness of my eye bags was presented to me in full Technicolour. Signs that no longer whispered but yelled with a megaphone, “Yoohoo… this single dull woman loves her salty snacks, thinks a daily 15 minute stroll is enough cardio, and can’t fall asleep until she’s doom-scrolled on her phone for at least 2 hours every night wondering what life would be like if she made better dating decisions in her 20’s!”
On the bright side, I’m wrinkle-free and the bits that are suppose to be firm and bouncy are holding the fort against gravity. But oh for the love of god, why does no one ever warn you about acid reflux from even just daring to glance at cheese??
So am I irrationally angry at being a year closer to the big 4-0 because my beauty bills just to look like I’ve at least a decent night’s worth of sleep increased? A tiny bit of it but not really. It’s no different from the general plucking, threading, sprucing regime I’ve started since I’ve learned that I don’t have to live with Muppet monobrows at 18 years of age.
Instead, Anger is just a nickname. Her real name is Fear.
It’s the fear that the clock is starting to run out on the dreams I have. The anxiety of being alone and never being chosen. Worry that I’ll always be intriguing enough to pique someone’s interest, yet never enough to make them stay for the rest of the ride. The dread that I’ll never write that book. The distress of what if there’s nothing interesting in my 40’s thereafter to write about.
I sat for an interview the other day where I was asked about my dating exploits at my age. After all the funny and insightful stories I shared, I was earnestly asked, “So have you given up on the idea of marriage for yourself?”
Like a Disney villain, I’d bristled and scrunched my nose for a micro-second aghast and almost snarled, “Honey, I’m only 39. Not dead.”
But instead I smiled sweetly and said, “Oh no, I still have hope. I know myself better now and the guys I’ve been dating are leveling up too.”
You know what’s worse than the fear of Death? It’s the fear that the chasm between potential and reality is slowly but surely widening apart.
Many many moons ago in faraway New York, I found myself at a private book signing for an author who just launched a book on the ancient Chinese art of Face Reading. I’d been invited by a mentor of mine, an established entrepreneur in her late-forties that I’d always admired for her kindness and polished demeanor.
The epitome of Upper Eastside chic, she would breeze into the office wheeling her rolling leather briefcase from her subway commute with perfectly streaked blonde hair and holding her thermos of coffee. Being all of 22 in my first real job as the office girl, I was both fascinated and terrified of her poise, intelligence and sharpness – which would reveal itself once in a while with an icy quip and wry smile if I’d slipped up.
While I can’t remember the actual projects I’d worked on in that short tragic stint at a fashion investment firm, I can tell you that at 3 pm each day, I’ll pop my head into her office and ask if she’ll want her usual pain au chocolat from the famed Fauchon in our building. She’ll smile and say “Yes please, thank you Noorindah” in a honeyed transatlantic accent reminiscent of old-school Hollywood which got me secretly giddy to hear my full name in her voice.
As I bounce away to the Parisian bakery downstairs, it would be the highlight of my day to roll my tongue and pronounce “One Pain Au Chocolat and a hot chocolate please” and felt oh-so-worldly and sophisticated for that fleeting moment. The elevator would take me up to the 57th floor where I’ll tip toe back into her office with the fancy black and white lettering paper bag. I’ll gently place it on her desk while she’s on a conference call and eye the gorgeous leather travel tray she has on her desk and vow that one day, I will be as effortlessly stylish, posh and kind as her.
So when I received that invite to the book signing after leaving the firm a month prior, I was beyond thrilled to be seen and heard. Until of course, I arrived at the chic uptown townhouse and realized I’m way out of my league. I was the youngest, brownest and poorest girl in the room of Chanel No 5, Hermes and old-school New York money. My mentor spotted me at the door, waved me in with a big smile and continental kiss on the cheek, then passed me a book and told me to mingle and enjoy myself. I was fucking petrified.
I grabbed onto the book like a flotation device as I bopped around the sea of blonde power women with a frozen grin on my face. My smile may have ended up looking like a grimace to the others though, as they’ll smile back politely but turn away and continue sipping on their champagne and chatting with their girlfriends. No one wanted to talk to me and I was too scared to talk to anyone else. So I found a tiny corner and did the thing we all came to the townhouse for – I read the book. Obviously I couldn’t help but be amused at the irony of being the only Asian at the event celebrating Chinese Face Reading and observing these white ladies fawn over the author who was making her rounds chatting with them. Yet secretly I wanted to congratulate her too for delving into the topic and making me feel a tiny less homesick to read something so close to home.
It felt like eons but it must have been only half an hour which I felt was a polite amount to stay, and can now run back to the safety of the subway and my broke young immigrant life. I went over to my mentor who was speaking to the author to say my goodbyes. Finally in a timid squeak, I shook the author’s hand and said, “Thank you for writing this book. I’m from Singapore and it made me feel like home.”
She took my hand and crinkling up her brown warm eyes, she looked directly into mine and gently said, “ Thank you. And don’t worry, you’ll grow into your cheekbones when you get older.”
Then she winked as she got pulled away by the other ladies who lunch. I wanted to jump up and down with glee, oh my god she noticed me! She gave me a reading! Wait, what does she mean I’ll grow into my cheekbones?
I squirrelled out of the room and hopped onto the subway. Seated in the more familiar comfort of the everyday commute, I flipped her book open to the chapter on cheekbones and remembered feeling so pleased and optimistic about the future.
Fast-forward to 17 years later in the smouldering Hoi An heat.
It’s Day 5 and the last one of my birthday vacation. I crossed the 39th mark alone in a strange town and I’m definitely nowhere near epitome of success and poise I’d put on a pedestal a lifetime ago. I’m messy, say the word ‘fuck’ way too many times, and wear my heart on my sleeve a little too much for my own good. But there are some rituals and little treasures I’ve stolen from the women and men I’d admire over the years and made them my own.
My favourite bathing suit is a white Marilyn Monroe-eque one piece that’s very Old Hollywood. My Tom Ford aviators are perched on my face always. My Panama hat dangles from a handcrafted leather lanyard I bought almost 10 years ago in Saigon. My holiday wardrobe consists of breezy cotton woodblock dresses I got from my travels in Bangalore. I wear intricate dangling brass earrings but only my mum’s simple gold bands on my finger. I write in my custom leather agenda with a Pilot fountain pen in Oxblood red. I take my coffee black. And yes, I have my very own gorgeous foldable travelling leather tray that I made by own hand with my initials.
Bougie much?
I’ll be the first to admit it but every piece has a story behind it. And that’s the best part of getting older – seeing how far you’ve come which only means how much further you can and will go. This was the little brown girl who used to be afraid to talk to strangers and had a script to practice each time she got on a call at her first job.
The white bathing suit? The first time I wore it, an ex criticised me at my choice saying I had no boobs to fill it in with.
(Eat your heart out L)
Tom Ford aviators? The same ex bought it for me as a gift and only good thing that came out of that clusterfuck.
The Panama hat and leather lanyard? When I bought them, I’d just moved back to Singapore from New York. I was 26 living at home with my parents and dead-broke, so the handmade hat and tiny leather piece made me feel connected to the old life in fashion I had in NY.
Woodblock dress in India? It was my one souvenir on a trip where I’d almost carved a new life working in Bangalore. The contract fell through but that dress is still brilliantly blue and green as was the sense of adventure 13 years ago.
Brass earrings? From a lovely Singaporean craftswoman named Maya who helped inspired the name Shy & Curious after a vulnerable chat with her.
Same with the custom leather agenda, made by another wonderful local craftsman Razib who designed it after the story of the Vogue editor I met in NY who took all her meeting notes in an initialed leather diary and was oh-so-put-together.
The Pilot fountain pen? Ah, that’s mine – with a touch of my dad. He introduced me to the art of writing with a fountain pen but when I got my first big gig as a freelancer, I went straight to the famous Fountain Pen Hospital in NY and got the Pilot Vanishing Point Decimo in baby pink that was worth as much as my very first part-time job at 18.
In other words, 22 year old Rin would still be pretty happy with this life so far.
When I was penning down my thoughts for this essay, I got transported back to that day in the intimidating book signing at the townhouse and wondered whatever did happen to my copy of the book. Which of course got me started on – what the hell did she say about my cheekbones and did it really come true?
I resorted to google to find a copy of it online so I can pull out exactly what it said and started laughing to myself over my 3rd glass of the local Coconut Coffee.
’The more prominent (high and developed) your cheekbones the more natural authority you possess. You are dynamic, ambitious, persistent, independent, and strong-willed in all aspects. Since you are so competent and have a great sense of pride, be careful you don’t become obstinate or vain in your pursuits.
Your biggest challenge in all relationships is that you have such high ideals in life and love, and you don’t want to settle for less than your ideal. Be careful not to demand the unattain-able; you will only set yourself up to be alone and lonely.
Accept and forgive yourself for not being perfect, and extend the same to those you care about. Remember, your high standards are simply one of your natural challenges in life.
Use your gift of persistence and determination to see the humor and compassion in your imperfections. You are much more lovable than you can imagine, especially when you think so, too!’
You know what’s my favourite part of the cheekbone chapter? She ends it with an enthusiastic and emphatic:
‘Give it a try’
What was that line again about being fortune’s fool?
Let’s give it another try then. Here’s to the next 17 years of funny stories and meaningful adventures – grey pubes and all. Một hai ba, DZÔ!