Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.

–Chekhov

New York, one has to say, is full of gorgeous women. And living in a place as such, seeing them every day on the street striding forward with such confidence and assurance, one aspires to be like them, one aspires to be one of them.

Yet, even a gorgeous woman, I dare say, when looking in the mirror—a common act in our daily life—must have moments of thinking themselves not so gorgeous.

And it must be tiring to be forever gorgeous, for both the onlookers and the gorgeous one. Because, few humans, if they were beautiful, could be unconscious of their beauty. That’s why, for instance, a bird in the air, on a tree branch chirping so admiringly to the morning sun is a sort of beauty with a simpler tone—our praise could not please them nor our criticism disturb them. They are unconscious of their beauty, for them singing in the sun in their red feather—there are quite a few cardinals now in the park as spring comes—are just their being.

But back to the mirror, what feelings what emotions at once rise when we look at ourselves in the mirror? Indeed, there are moments we are startled by the person that appears in it: that’s me? One is not well-acquainted with oneself, a strangeness would occur, how did it happen? From infanthood till now the grown-person in the mirror, what has life imprinted on it? How many joys and sorrows, happiness and disappointments has she gathered up on the way?

Looking in the mirror, at times, we are pleased, one is to learn that if one appears good-looking or not often is a matter of the difference between one sort of light and another, “oh, certainly I am not bad-looking.” One thinks to oneself. At other times, we are appalled, “oh my! I do not know I could look so terrible, maybe even my own mother wouldn’t approve of me.” One turns away from the mirror.

“Mirror” the English word is based on Latin mirare ‘look at’, as we also call it “looking glass”.

In Chinese the word for mirror “镜 jìng” also means “lens 望远镜, 镜头, glasses 眼镜”.

I look at the origin of this character, the left part is the metal radical ‘钅’ which could be explained as mirrors were polished bronze in the beginning.

Another explanation in the dictionary says that 镜 means ‘scenery’ and scenery means ‘the light of the sun’, the gold (the metal) is shining and has light in it so it could light up other objects and be used as 镜.

How curious it is that “mirror” in English derives from ‘look at’ and in Chinese from ‘the light of the sun’!

And how curious it is too that 镜 shares a similar pronunciation as 睛 (eye)!

So we are alive—what a miracle—so we are still in the light of the sun. And we look in the mirror. Does she get your approval? Do you, as occasionally the sidewalks of New York would tell you in chalk written letters, “love yourself”?

Do you really when you are looking at yourself in the mirror? Not only when the light is right and you are pleased, but also at these inevitable terrible moments?