Real life isn't picture perfect

How my wedding turned into a bad airbrush day

Family photos tend to capture the happy moments in life: a child's eyes wide with excitement on opening a birthday present, a fresh graduate tossing his mortar board into the air or the exhausted relief on a runner's face at the end of a marathon.

But when did we start airbrushing our memories?

A photo studio in the UK caused a stir recently when parents criticized its offer to use Photoshop tools to remove marks and blemishes from their child's annual school portrait. Cardwell & Simons charges 7 ($8.50; 7.7 euros) for the service, although in its defense the company director told the Daily Mail newspaper that it refuses to alter the shape of a child's face. She said most requests "are to do with clothing, like a stain on the child's top, or with hair being untidy or windswept".

People still complained, however. One angry mother was quoted in the same report as saying: "An airbrushing service sends out the message that if you're not happy with anything about your physical appearance, then you can change it, and that is an extremely negative thing to be saying to children."

"It is all a result of the Kardashian-style celebrity culture where people are measured on how they look," she added.

The story made me shudder not least because it reminded me of my wedding day.

My wife and I were married four years ago at a claustrophobic civil affairs office in Huzhou, the nearest city to my wife's hometown in Zhejiang province.

Far from the glamor and romance of a Hollywood movie wedding, the counter for registering a marriage was right next to the one handling divorces, and just down the hall from one handing out death certificates.

One of the women who handled our paperwork (she looked about 17 and wore a woolen sweater with a cartoon bunny on the front) told us to head around the corner to get our photo taken for the license.

We ended up in a tiny two-room studio: one with a camera pointed at two unfeasibly small stools and a red screen, and the other with a bored-looking woman in front of an old, grubby Apple Mac.

Click. One rapid-fire shot and it was done. I didn't even get a chance to comb my hair.

As we emerged from the dark room we were met by our own uncomfortable smiles staring back at us from the dust-covered computer screen.

"Wait. That's Photoshop she's got open," I said to my wife, pointing at the screen. Then, with a slightly raised voice, I asked: "What's she doing to your face?"

In the month running up to our wedding, my wife had enjoyed a long holiday in Vietnam. Her skin is naturally a deep olive and weeks spent on the beach had left her even darker - a major no-no for a Chinese bride. It didn't help that my face has a permanent pallor, resulting in a stark contrast.

I watched in horror (and my wife in quiet embarrassment) as the woman whitened my wife's face in the picture using Photoshop. She didn't even do it evenly, focusing solely on the forehead and cheeks, which effectively left my bride with a five o'clock shadow.

"This photo for the license is going to look like Bluto marrying the corpse of a homeless man," I said, as I contemplated whether to angrily snatch the mouse out of the woman's hand.

Before I could act, however, the printer was whirring, and we were soon on our way back to the registry office with several copies of this monstrous photograph. After a few wallops with a red stamp, and a payment of about 30 yuan ($4.50; 4 euros; 3.60), we were officially husband and wife.

To this day, I still can't look at my marriage license without shuddering - not exactly the reaction you want for memories of your wedding day.

Every nation has its own standard of beauty. I get that. In Britain and United States, many admire Kim Kardashian for her curves, while in China, the likes of actresses Fan Bingbing or Angelababy are held up as examples of "perfection", lauded for their pale skin and large eyes.

While there is perhaps nothing wrong with appreciating beauty, I take umbrage at someone automatically amending an image of my wife to meet some perceived standard that, in reality, few women are able to reach without the aid of cosmetics or even plastic surgery.

That photo isn't a true reflection of how we looked on our wedding day, but it certainly paints for me a clear picture of how obsessed we've become with the idea of perfection.

craig@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/04/2016 page20)