Ugly People

Little Miss Blockhead

| Erica Fong

There’s a girl in my building whom I just had to immortalize into drawing. I see her maybe once a week, sometimes less, but each time, I’m shocked at how BIG her head is. Not only is it big, it’s also totally block-shaped, thanks to her square jaw and thick, black hair that’s cut and blown in the shape of a box.

Stupid happy blockhead

Sometimes, I’ll see her strutting down the street alone with a big goofy smile on her face, apparently feeling very happy about herself despite not having anyone around (that always creeps me out) but once our eyes meet and she catches me staring, her expression immediately darkens and she casts a glare at me like she wants me dead!

Angry blockhead

I could be wrong, but her glare also seems to say, “What are you staring at, you jealous of what I got?!” It’s downright creepy and I usually divert my eyes right away. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I highly doubt it as my colleague has spotted her before and got “the chills” too. What have I ever done to you, Little Miss Blockhead?

A face only a mother could love

| Erica Fong

Sometimes, you come across people so beautiful you can’t help yourself from staring. Other times, you come across people so ugly…you just wanna punch them out.

WHAT? Yea, I said it. Some people are so ugly, they just trigger the whack-a-mole reaction in me, whereby I gasp in horror every time they pop up and all I wanna do is clobber it back into its sad little hole with my giant stuffed hammer.

I believe there’s a term for this in Cantonese called ‘yeung seui’, which literally means ‘ugly in appearance’. I’ve tried to translate it into English before but never quite managed, since ‘fugly’, ‘repulsive’ or ‘disgusting’ just doesn’t warrant a physical beating like ‘yeung seui’ does. Or is it just me who defines ‘yeung seui’ as ‘so damn ugly you just wanna punch him/her out’?

As an example, I came across a very ‘yeung seui’ guy in the MTR the other day. He was sitting across me looking like a zombie with his lower jaw jutted out and mouth hanging open to catch any flies passing by, I presume. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head, yet he still managed to stare at everyone around him for uncomfortably long periods of time, all the while giving a ‘I want to eat your brains’ look to us all.

Like a train wreck, I tried to look away but found my eyes drifting back to him magnetically against my will, getting more and more annoyed with the way he looked, and why did he have to keep staring at me?! Even though it was days ago, the image of him was emblazoned into my head, so I just had to draw him out:

…now isn’t that a face you just wanna punch out!?