White Girls are Beautiful

That white is beautiful is ingrained in the minds of Thai people from a very early age. When I gave my students two minutes to write down everything they thought of when they thought of America, nearly every student wrote something about how American girls are white and beautiful. I wrote earlier about how it is nearly impossible to find skin care products without a whitening agent in Thailand. All commercials, billboards, and other advertisements for skin care emphasizes that it "brightens" and "whitens". Those who cannot afford skin lightening treatments purchase whitening products off the streets- which is described more in depth in the article posted below. I knew from my experience in Hong Kong that in most of Asia- as in other parts of the world- girls use whitening products to lighten their skin, but I guess I did not realize the extent to which Thais, and especially Thai women, will go to make their skin "brighter". I also did not realize how young children are when they begin this obsession with lightening their skin and how much time and money they spend in creams and treatments. When I explain to the girls that in America and Europe girls put oil on their skin and lay in the sun to get darker, they just laugh and don't seem to understand my point- that definitions of beauty are very much cultural specific and that they do not need to accept their culture's definition of beauty- that they are beautiful just the way they are.