The Age of the Peacock

"This summer, before putting on your shorts and sandals, be sure to do skin care treatment and thoroughly clean your legs, so that you can present a fresh clean image to people." You would probably assume that this is an ad for a woman's beauty product, wouldn't you?

A men's fashion magazine that sells over 10,000 copies per month in convenience stores cautions its male readers that if they want to have the "face of an angel," then every day they must do "three-step skin care" to rid themselves of dead skin cells. Men can now retain their youthful looks with moisturizing masks, wrinkle-removing patches, and techniques for tightening facial skin and giving the lines of the face a more pronounced depth. Of course, after facial care is finished, don't forget to rub moisturizing cream into your calves!

Everywhere advertisements are promoting the idea of the "peacock." They are encouraging modern men to take practical steps to "decorate" themselves. The American cosmetics company Clinique had sales over NT$1 million in the first month in which they released men's skin care products in Taiwan. Chu Che-tao, the company's director of education and training, declares: "The market potential for male skin-care products is unlimited." Phone calls and Internet inquiries from men asking about beauty products and services are outpacing the capacity of the industry to handle them.

Angela Chiang, general manager of Access Cosmetics International, the Taiwan agent for a number of imported perfumes, says that Taiwan's male fragrance market began to grow markedly in 1998. Last year, some of the leading brands showed sales increases of 200%. Many male clients have three or four different kinds of fragrance at home, using different ones for the office, long weekends, and so on.

In days gone by, it was considered an extravagance for Dad to go down to the barber shop for a shave and haircut. Today beauty parlors are offering these aging gents the chance to lighten their spots, change their profiles, and have their wrinkles pulled away. One salon in Hsinchu called Modern Man Salon has adopted the slogan: "Men and women are finally equal."

The determination of men in Taiwan to redo themselves is rising. Men are giving away nothing to their sisters in the search for beautiful bodies, as is suggested by a few recent disputes between male beauty salons and dissatisfied customers. According to statistics from early March 2000 from the Wanfang Hospital Laser Center, last year the ratio of men to women going for cosmetic surgery was 1:3, compared to 1:5 just five years ago. Lai Hsien-hung, a physician at the center, predicts that before long the ratio will reach 1:1.

For those hoping to enter vocational schools on the "application" or "recommendation" tracks, the process starts in April. Students should first inquire about the requirements of the individual school before submitting their applications.

Show me the body

It is frequently argued that it is a male-dominated society that creates the need for women to spend money making themselves up as if their lives depended on it. But who should get the "credit" for this new male infatuation with beauty? Besides the fact that advertising and sales pitches in a modern commercial society "seduce" some men into falling into the beauty trap, many observers suggest that a major force behind male vanity is women, especially the women closest to individual men.

Betty Wu, a famous author and television host, says that today seven out of ten modern guys who buy name-brand fashions and use cosmetics do so under the influence of their girlfriends. Wu has found that "modern men can in fact easily accept change." Indeed, as consumers men are often easier to deal with than women, as they are more decisive about purchasing.

When Taiwan was a primarily agricultural, then primarily industrial, society, most men lived off physical labor. Few bothered to worry about their external appearance. Even office workers dressed the same every day for years on end. Of course, rich kids had the ability to dress up, but they were generally seen as playboys or dandies.

But women have had enough of that, and these days have the economic wherewithal to do something about it. In the past, women could only be recipients of gifts from men, but now they are able to buy gifts to give to their male partners. Women are very familiar with the cosmetics market, and are now influencing the consumer behavior of their husbands and boyfriends. With a little help from women, men's fashions have taken off: "Virtually all the major men's fashion brands have been brought into Taiwan in the last five years," say Justin Lin, editor-in-chief of Men's Uno, a well-known fashion magazine. In the past, when foreign companies would release men's and women's fashion lines at the same time, Taiwan importers would only bring in the women's clothing; now men's and women's attire comes in together.

Men also are increasingly feeling pushed by women in the realm of cosmetic surgery and body shaping. Many men have been encouraged by their wives to get surgery to change their single-fold eyelids to double-fold, or to have fat removed by liposuction. One mother brought her middle school son to Lin Ching-yun's cosmetic surgery hospital, saying: "I couldn't give birth to a good nose for you, but at least I can have a good nose made for you."

This scene, of parents and students jumbled around a just-posted list of exam results, will soon be consigned to history. （Sinorama file photo）

Macho macho man

In the view of Betty Wu, the reason men are daring to enter the ranks of beauty lovers, and even accept softer and more feminine standards of beauty, is because expectations of men in society have changed.

The women of Generation X, born after 1965, have economic independence, and no longer are looking to men to support them and their children. Thus they no longer are looking for someone who "walks and talks like a real man." In the past, the definition of "a real man" was usually one who could support a wife and children, and who would play the active role in a relationship, with the woman being the passive partner. Since more and more women do not expect a man to support them, what they are looking for in a man has also changed. Wu croons, "We want men to be more juicy." In the past it was no big deal if your male partner wasn't really presentable, but now an important condition for a boyfriend is that one is not embarrassed to take him out in public. Says Wu: "I just don't understand what my mother saw in John Wayne in his dirty old jeans."

In the past women wanted to be coddled, now they want to coddle men. Guys who evoke a woman's sympathetic instincts and "non-threatening" types of "pretty boys" are becoming more and more popular. Lucia Lee, a young office worker who regularly discusses social trends with webfriends on her own website, says that modern males no longer have that rough-tough character; guys like Hsieh Ting-feng and Chen Hsiao-tung, who never have a hair out of place, are very popular male idols these days. When well-groomed male stars stand on stage next to their female counterparts, they both look equally "juicy."

It is hoped that multiple-track admissions will encourage schools to cultivate well-rounded students and discourage a narrow-minded focus on academics. The photo shows a student at NTNU High's Anniversary Day Fair, who had helped build this aquarium for an exhibition of group projects.

Relax dudes

Social change is permitting women to devote more attention to admiring male beauty, and it also is allowing men to enjoy beautifying themselves. Ning Yin-bin, an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Philosophy at National Central University, and an expert on gender issues, says that for a long time "society did not encourage men to spend time making themselves up or becoming more attractive to others." The role society assigned to men emphasized accomplishments in the outside world, so it was only legitimate for men to learn how to make a living.

Wang Hao-wei, a psychiatrist who frequently writes on the subject of men in Taiwan, says that guys by nature find it hard to reveal their softer sides. They can only put down their body armor after slugging a few drinks down. Today, they're getting a chance to express themselves through external beauty, and can show a softer side.

He Tu-lin, a tall and handsome television star, declared his own opinion-without the least bashfulness about it-on a recent radio program: "The key factor allowing men to have the courage to display their own bodies is that they see their bodies as their own. Their bodies no longer belong to a cultural tradition or to other people. As men love themselves more, they can transfer some of this self-love to their bodies. As a result, modern men have discovered that can they can make a statement about themselves through their clothes and their bodies."

Whether awakened to a new sense of their own bodies by popular culture, or driven to stay at the forefront of commercial fashion, contemporary men have certainly made a firm decision to make themselves more beautiful.

Moreover, as the service industry has come to dominate the economy, a fresh and clean appearance-with absolutely none of that macho sweat thing allowed-has become considered simply good manners. Many of the young men one might consider "vain" say that they only bother to create an immaculate external appearance because they need to look sharp for their jobs.

Yet, simply not smelling repulsive is hardly enough to satisfy these men. A case in point: Last year, Singtsufang Enterprise imported specially made underwear from Japan that gives a guy that "tight butt" look. They originally anticipated that the stock would sell out only by October, but in fact it went six months earlier.

Kao (Taiwan) Corporation recently did a "millennial masculinity survey" in which 70% of male respondents said that they could accept the idea of a man wearing cosmetics. Many foreign manufacturers and advertisers are rubbing their hands in gleeful anticipation of getting a share of this market. Chen Yen-ying, director of public relations planning for Kao, says that this year at least four companies will begin marketing skin care products for men.

From the celebrity advertisements in subway stations and on the sides of buses, you can see that in terms of market leaders like trendy fashions, hair styling, body sculpting, face care, and even undergarments, there is a tremendous amount of scope for a more diversified selection of products for men.

The application track to Chienkuo High reserves places for swimmers, track and field stars and other athletes who took first place in individual provincial competitions. The photo shows the famous Chienchung rugby team practicing with third-year junior high students who will be attending the school next fall.

Androgynous zone

Ideally, businesses and popular culture want to be able to sweep everyone up in a single net, and would prefer not to break their market up by gender. It happens that many modern guys who go in for dressing up are also showing a trend toward androgynous standards of beauty.

In fact, says Betty Wu, it is not only now that androgynous standards of beauty are starting to take root in Taiwan. Although everyone has a different aesthetic sense, and there are many kinds of beauty, "you can still identify certain trends," she says. "Some years the look is the tough, hard-nosed type, and other years a softer, more feminine look is in." Look at some of the stars of early films in Taiwan, like Chin Han, Chin Hsiang-lin, and Liu Wen-zheng, who had a definite elegance. "They were tall and well-built, but very gentle," opines Wu. These days, more and more women, in appreciating men, think that the "prettier" the guys are, the better.

Justin Lin, in his analysis of the pretty-boy phenomenon, avers: In the 1990s, the general trend of all cutting-edge design was "super-youth." Many well-established products appealing to the upper middle-class found it impossible to resist the trend toward youth and had to change their own design and style.

Looking around, you can see a transition in the most popular types of male models. The muscle man and the James Dean type are on the way out. More and more the models are of the soft, almost feminine schoolboy type, the boy next-door type, or boys who look childish and underdeveloped, as if they lack experience. You could say that people just got tired of looking at macho men and cool dudes. But as Wang Hao-wei sees it, the deeper cause of the current worship of ever-greater youthfulness in modern society can be traced to the dissolution of the traditional family structure. Elders, who held all the power in the past, have become targets of derision. Businesses have no choice but to go along with the trend. Wang concludes: "In a society in which individualism is important, youth is the best security."

Besides adapting to rising individualism, ever-alert commercial culture is also taking advantage of feminism and homosexual self-awareness. Cross-gender thinking is influencing the way men make themselves appear.

This is especially apparent in the entertainment community, which sets the pace for popular culture and is often the fastest to pick up on new trends. Many in that field are crossing traditional barriers between male and female. In the past only women had sequins, embroidery, or skin-revealing gaps as part of their clothing, but now these are being put in men's clothing as well. Recently, the top four Hong Kong male singing stars were seen on stage competing for attention while wearing skirts. You can expect that it won't be long before you can admire some guy on the street wearing a skirt.

The new generation of young women mostly have a positive attitude toward androgynous beauty. As Lucia Lee says, "raw masculinity or raw femininity is of course attractive, but the more diversified is the pursuit of beauty, the more interesting the world is. As far as I'm concerned, if a guy wants to wear a skirt or have long hair, as long as it looks good, anything goes."

From now on, you will need more than just good grades if you want to advance to senior high school. Participating in service activities or serving as a class officer has become an admissions requirement for some schools.

The Non-no set

Male beauty is tending toward youth and gender neutrality, and those pursuing beauty are mainly young. They are the ones who most dare to and who can afford to. Chen Ta-wei, a 28-year-old webpage designer, says that in his generation the girls grew up reading Non-no and the boys grew up reading Men's Non-no. Fashion magazines taught him to accept more colorful and cuter clothing, and now he knows name-brand fashions like the back of his hand. Though he has already entered the working world, he still pays close attention to the men's fashions introduced into magazines. "This year Prada is putting out purple shoes that cost about NT$20-30,000. Doc Marten's millennial commemorative shoes have a similar style, but the price is much lower. I'm thinking about buying the latter."

Girls who grew up reading Non-no can accept the consumer attitude of the Men's Non-no crowd. Both groups follow fashion closely, exchange information, and raise new ideas.

"I don't work out to build muscles, but to define them. Right now shape is what's in. With a little bit of muscle, your clothes look even better." Chen Ta-wei also has his own ideas about the skin care products on the market: "Men's skin care products all assume that men have oily skin with built up dead skin cells, so they have very strong cleaning agents. But these can damage your skin. I prefer to use softer women's skin tonic."

Cabula Chang, associate managing editor at ChinaTimes.com, who is now 40, has a brother eight years younger than himself. He says that if he is the last of the "a-man's-life-is-hard" generation, his younger brother will unfortunately be of a set whose lives will be even harder down the road. This is because his younger brother, who invests an hour a day decking himself out, spends virtually all his money on clothing and pleasure.

Liu Hsiang, a PhD candidate who also teaches at an English supplementary school, says that it is certainly necessary to spend time and money if you want to give your exterior appearance a little character. The material of the clothes and the hair style have to be just right. And some labels do indeed represent quality. Liu, who clears out his closet for each new season, currently has 25 pairs of shoes, and more than 30 shirts. He feels that the expression "there are no ugly women, only lazy women" can equally be applied to men, so he also encourages his friends to pay more attention to their appearance to give people a better impression.

It has been said that "power is the greatest aphrodisiac," and this is still true. But in the past, men with status simply neglected their physical appearance. Today's younger generation isn't content with knowing that they have power or ability; young men today care about the impression they make on the outside as well.

Since Taipei City implemented recommendation-track admissions, students have been admitted on the strength of their excellence at Chinese chess or making kites. There are growing admission opportunities for children with special skills. The photo shows the model aircraft club at Kaohsiung High.

Beauty is an acquired trait

Some feel that the arrival of "the age of the peacock" is simply a reflection of the frivolousness of the younger generation. Public commentary was quite reserved on the incident of "Chiao Tung University has no handsome guys" and the subsequent "male beauty pageant" earlier this year.

But, counters Chen Tsai-ching, director of guidance counseling at the Lungshan Middle School, it is in the nature of young people in whatever era to worry about their looks. As she sees it, young people are no more vain now than they were in the past. It's just that society is more open, and adults are more tolerant. They no longer have a negative, repressive attitude, and therefore young people are more daring about expressing themselves.

Ko Ching-ming, a professor of Chinese at National Taiwan University who is in his fifties, says, "I grew up with compulsory haircuts and school uniforms." In the past, both boys and girls were required to keep their external appearance "non-provocative." The new generation has more opportunities to express individuality through appearance. In the youth sub-culture that aims for rebelliousness, dyed hair and pierced ears have become trademarks. Ko sees this simply as the diversified choice that is available in a pluralistic society. "There's no need to see it as an indicator of morality."

Chang Shao-yu, a second year medical student at National Taiwan University, says that in fact beauty is learned. Some of his classmates are able to achieve a certain look without really investing too much effort simply because their parents devoted a lot of attention to clothes. "The kids from my family, on the other hand, have to figure it out for ourselves." His voice carries a tinge of regret. He and his mother rarely went shopping together or discussed how to evaluate the quality of clothes. Chang, who takes note of how others dress and of how fashions are matched in store displays, says that the point is not for parents to teach their children to be slaves to fashion, but to teach them how to dress with a sense of character and beauty.

Whether or not you find this behavior among some men acceptable, it is an established fact. Tsai Shih-ping, a "pretty boy" from the literary world who is now his 40s, sighs: "This is a new era, and men really can make a statement with their bodies. From a certain point of view, I believe that many men around my age feel very jealous, and even a sense of loss, when we see young guys with their personalized photo albums and their dressing up."

Public high schools are so crowded that they have to turn many prospective students away, whereas private high schools have their arms wide open to welcome more. Closing the gap in educational resources between public and private schools is urgently needed.

Dress for success?

There is more at work here, however, than just looking good, and many men now feel, as many women have long felt, that dressing up is forced on them by society. Wang Hao-wei notes that in this generation people are increasingly forced into situations in which appearance matters-for example, on the lecture podium, or in front of the TV camera or the camera lens. People need a greater sense of self-confidence, and feel more and more uncomfortable with their bodies. So they strive more and more to recover lost confidence by enhancing their external appearance.

"If you don't have looks, and you can't dress well, you won't even be able to find a job as a clerk in a clothing store, which is ranked as one of the lowest status job categories," says Chen Ta-wei. Go to a clothing store and check it out for yourself-you won't find any ugly guys working there.

In fact, there is still a lot of discrimination in our society based on appearance. It is not only the young who want to look better, and it seems the attitudes of the kids are affecting their elders at home. Besides supporting their families, guys in their 40s are also starting to worry about whether they are looking old, and whether their beer-guts are starting to show. So they too are joining the ranks of those seeking cosmetic surgery and skin care treatments.

Men's Uno had one article which said: In the past, Western guys lived for sun, sea, and sex. These days, they think about how the sun causes skin cancer, the sea is filled with oil spills, and sex can be fatal. Thus a beautiful body, appropriate diet, and healthy recreation have become the new pursuits. Part of the reason middle-aged men seek better looks is also health, with health now encompassing the realm of skin care and looks as well.

Ning Yin-bin suggests that it is hard to generalize about which group or groups are in the "beauty-loving set." He points to the fact that even politicians are playing this game. In this visual age, politics is closely tied in with performance. Male politicians are careful about their appearance and attire. With the help of male beauty salons, skin care products, and cosmetic surgery, these middle-aged men can also win the support of strangers just from their external appearance.

Lin Ching-yun, who often helps politicians with their images, says frankly that many politicos come to have their wrinkles and the bags under their eyes removed before they go for photo sessions. And many government officials who often appear on TV have been patients in her cosmetic surgery clinic.

The book, Dear, I Want You to Look Good For Me is billing itself as "the first book of sartorial philosophy against which men can measure themselves." The book declares that as Taiwan moves toward internationalization, men are constantly required to appear in public places or at social gatherings, so that dressing up is no longer a monopoly of women.

This class in culinary arts at Kaiping High is highly regarded within the food service industry. Vocational senior high schools have traditionally been Taiwan students' last resort, but now the nation's educational authorities are working hard to open "a second educational expressway" by removing the obstacles preventing students at technical high schools from advancing in their studies.

Playboys, not chauvinists

The rapidity with which ideas and fads spread in a wealthy information society means that a love of beauty is not limited to one gender, and body-sculpting does not distinguish between young and old. Last year, a survey by Tung's Foundation discovered that the gender/age cohort most concerned about comparisons between their bodies and others' is men aged 60 and above. They ranked higher than women or any other age group of men on "willingness to pay money to preserve or enhance physique" and "attention devoted to changes in physique." The Foundation's suggested explanation is that these men were focused on their careers when they were younger, and they are only turning their attention to their appearance as they get older. The new generation, on the other hand, strikes a balance between career and appearance. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

In the eyes of feminists, the arrival of the era of male preening has added a number of interesting possibilities to the game of mutual admiration between the sexes. But besides lustful appreciation there is a deeper question: Do the "peacocks" who have been influenced in part by feminist consciousness "have any different ideas or make any adjustments with regard to their roles in relations between the sexes?"

Not necessarily, it appears. He Tu-lin, a staunch advocate of male body autonomy, did an advertisement once for jewelry for men. Beneath the soft face was a body of primitive, raw male muscle, with the idea being that jewelry makes a man even sexier. The ad copy claimed that jewelry would attract women and make them "willing to accept your rules." Wang Hao-wei has asked flashy "pretty boys" how they cope if their girlfriends won't listen to them. Often the case is, "I give her a good slap in the face."

Despite such anecdotal evidence, however, there are hopes that there will be positives from the new male fashion sense. Ning Yin-bin assumes that as men and women compete in corporeal beauty, some balance will be reached, without going to extremes. Lin Ching-yun, who has often expressed in writing her conviction that people shouldn't go for cosmetic surgery unless they have little choice, says that the advantage of men entering the ranks of cosmetic surgery patients is that there is more supervision of the industry; women who go for plastic surgery accompanied by husbands or boyfriends usually get better results. Liu Hsiang, who spends a lot of time dressing and making up, has come to feel deeply the trouble women go through in their pursuit of beauty.

Perhaps, when more men can feel the sentiment that women have known for millennia of "dressing up to please others," gender relations will be a little more harmonious.

Raising a cheer at a middle-of-the-pack Taipei senior high school. When you're young, in addition to absorbing knowledge, you also need opportunities to yell and to laugh.