Photo by Make 65

By Wendy Choy-Chan

There is a Chinese saying that one greets the clothing of another person before one greets the person, meaning what we wear represents who we are. Another one says the clothes on a man is as important as the gold on a buddha’s statue.

When I was an engineering student in college, sweatpants and a baseball cap were the go-to outfit, especially after a late night’s work. Also, a morning shower was not as important as the extra 30 minutes of sleep I would get if I were to go without. According to the Chinese proverbs, I wouldn’t consider myself “charming” as I did not pay any attention to how I dressed or how I looked.

To be honest, I have very little fashion sense, not knowing how to match my outfits and having no interest in shopping for clothes. I don’t put on make-up and my facial routine consists of only a cleanser and facial moisturizer. (I am not against dressing up and make-up; it’s just that these things don’t appeal to me and I am bad at it.)

When I started preaching and teaching, I struggled with what to wear for these occasions. If I could, I would preach in my jeans, but out of respect (especially for Chinese churches), I went out to buy dress pants and nice tops and dress shoes. Someone had suggested to me that I should wear a suit to look more “professional.” I wondered what “professional” meant, and how would that help my preaching?

My struggle ended, interestingly, when I was invited to teach at a place but someone there was opposed because I was not a man, I was not Caucasian, and I did not hold a doctorate degree. My struggle ended because I realized that I could only do so much to my outer appearance if my goal was to “charm” others to see me as someone I was not. I could not dress myself to be a male caucasian PhD. I was so upset that I purposely dressed down a little bit when I taught that time, but the teaching went well.

The person who opposed my speaking engagement actually said to me right after class that my teaching was powerful and effective. His remarks reminded me of another struggle I had before. I am a person of simple mind and simple words, and I had once admired those who could articulate difficult theological concepts, using long and hard-to-pronounce theological terms. And then, I realized there are really two groups of these people: one group is naturally charming (or that they are charming because they are natural) while the other I could just tell they are dressing up their speech with fancy words to act like the first group.

Charm is in the being, not the doing. People are charming, whether wearing jeans or wearing suits — if that’s who they are. People are charming, whether they say “Pauline corpus” or “the letters that Paul wrote” — if that’s who they are.

Instead of doing something to become someone charming, my being will drive my doing, and that is the real charm!

Wendy Choy-Chan came to North America from Hong Kong when she was 15. After graduating with a MScE, she worked as a telecommunications engineer for a few years before becoming a full-time mom. She earned her MA in Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in 2016, and is now serving with Becoming What God Intended Ministries. Despite living in the coffee capital (Seattle), Wendy enjoys scouting out tea shops with her husband and two daughters.