Growing up and being cute easier said than done

Three days before I left for China, a salesperson thought I was 16. I was, actually, a 21-year-old college graduate - no, I was a despondent 21-year-old college graduate.

By that point, I had spent much of my late teens trying to will myself into outgrowing my short height and baby face - without success. But a propaganda sign in Beijing turned my anxiety to joy when I learned that being cute was now a government mandate. "Zuo wei ke'ai de ren," the sign said, "Be a cute person."

In the time it took me to decipher the six characters, my baby face had gone from being a liability to a prerequisite for a model citizen. I was ecstatic to learn that the difference between cute and national hero was all a matter of perspective.