Looking young - a good thing?

I just left Stanford, about 13 hours ago. Right now I'm in the HK international airport. There's this internet zone at DFS.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I REALLY look too young. L asked me before, will the air stewardess check your age when you order alcohol? I thought "Nah, they probably have some register of the passengers on board - so they know who can drink and who can't". Well, turns out that she was right. I got checked for my age. well, not check as in "could you show me some ID please?". The conversation went like this:

"Could I have some white wine please?"

"How old are you?" - in a nice sounding tone.

*deep sigh* "I'm ... twenty... five .." I intoned slowly, almost with the realisation (realization) that she's going to check my ID.

"its ok", she said, as though she sensed my defensiveness..

sigh.. you know, when my friends and i was in vegas playing in the casinos, almost every table we went to, the dealer (or the floor manager) would check whether we were 21. I mean, it was ok for the first few tables.. but after a while it really got on our nerves. The manager suggesed we see security to get a "wristband" - you know those bands you get when you visit the amusement park, or when you get into a bar.. its dumb. we didn't get the bands of course. looks kinda silly don't you think?

i know many people would want to look young. it should probably be taken as a compliment when people check if you're of legal drinking/gambling/RA age. but when you're 25, and still gets mistaken for <18... (or 21, cus thats the legal drinking age in the US, but since that was an international flight, i assume the legal age is 18) you know there's something wrong. with either the face you've got (ah-boy ah), the hair you're wearing (uncombed, ungelled, unwaxed, unrebonded, unhighlighted), the clothes you wear (jeans, T-shirt, sandals), the attitude you've got (what? what's with my attitude?).

and, everytime i go to the hawker center, the stallkeepers will say "xiao-di ah, yao she me?" (little brother, what do you want?". and there was this one time, when i was 21, i went swimming and paid the "children" rate (<=16). it wasn't intentional. i gave the counter "auntie" $2, she returned $1.40 without even asking. its 60c for children and $1 for adults. haiz...

next time i'm working, people will probably wonder if i'm an intern. or on summer attachment or something. nobody'll take me seriously. i'll be working for 5-10 years and still look "junior". seriously, looking young isn't necessarily a good thing.

maybe next time i'll wear a long sleeve shirt, pants and leather shoes onto every flight i take. sigh...