In an attempt to get my Mandarin pop fix, in my new existence without a TV, I'm listening to the radio on the internet. I just heard a commercial where a man tells a woman, she doesn't have to worry, there's away she can eat cheesecake and chocolate pudding without getting fat. She can eat Jellybelly jellybeans flavored cheesecake and chocolate pudding.
On one hand, it's pretty cool that I can understand a commercial on the radio. I definitely couldn't before. On the other hand, the actual content is one of the saddest things I've ever heard.
Well, while I'm on my soapbox, why do you think people like white skin so much. This is sort of inspired by the Taiwanese passion for whiteness, but I think it exists other places to. I've been thinking about it lately. I'm curious what the two other people who read my blog that aren't shackled to me by DNA think about this. Those who are biologically related to me are also welcome to respond, as well.
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9 comments:
That's a very interesting question... I've never thought about it, but I think it's possible that skin color preferences vary from region to region, and even from country to country. For instance, in South America white skin is somewhat appreciated since it's not the dominant skin color, but maybe in countries where white is predominant, perhaps other colors are more appreciated.
What made you think and write about it?
Laura
PS: That stuff about the jelly beans is REALLY SAD!
Laura
well, i guess the first thought that pops to mind is just that Euro/Anglo skin is just more prized, since they are the dominant race.
-Michelle
dont you know? people who have dark skin in asia have it because they work in the fields all day- meaning they are poor, and nobody likes poor people in asia.
but laura makes a good point too. i mean, tons of white people get tans over here.
Did you read the New York Times article recently about the bizarre skin bleaching fixes in Asia? Although I'm surprised tanning hasn't caught on there because a lot of Asians are obsessed with Western culture.
The theory is that pale skin used to be prized for the reasons mentioned above - that poor people worked in the fields. But then tan skin caught on in the 20th century because after the industrial revolution the urban poor worked in factories and never got out much. Since a lot of Asian nations are extremely urbanized, and there are a lot of factories there, there's another reason I'm surprised that pale skin is so prized.
Anyway if it's not one thing it's another, the beauty industry always finds a way to torture women. Naomi Wolf said in "The Beauty Myth" that women who are happy with their bodies won't buy anything. It's funny, because I was reading an article in a fashion magazine about the most embarrassing beauty problems, and they were mostly stuff I hadn't cared about at all beforehand but by the end of the article I was totally paranoid.
the beauty myth thing is interesting... so we could get women everywhere to wear a beer helmet with snorkeling gear if we could somehow make it seem imperative to being beautiful? fascinating. someone needs to do a study.
Nien-
Don't some of the things that women do for "beauty" seem as ridiculous as wearing a beer helmet and snorkeling gear? (i.e., injecting botulinium toxin into their faces, cutting open their chests and putting foreign objects into their chests, getting colonics for a flatter stomach, etc ...)
yeah, i get where you're coming from. but boob jobs and botox are a way to achieve the "standard" look. no one understands that it's ridiculous to go that far. but if they had a beer helmet and snorkeling gear...
Erm... I hate to say this but over in asia, having almost flat facial features, we are unable to get make up to really stand out.
With the same theory as to why artists' canvas are white, the face is also preferred to be as fair as possible so that make up colours shine and the skin looks positively radiant beneath it.
I disagree that being tanned means we have had a hard life in the fields. This might have been true eons ago but today, I blame the rise of what society conditions us into thinking of as beauty. Sort of like how being thin and slim is the ideal image of a beautiful woman.
I am fair by nature, no amount of tanning will stick to me for more than 2 weeks and of course, as the grass is always greener on the other end, I prefer to be tanned than fair.
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