Today is a holiday, so I’ve been reading and doing the exercises in “Culture Matters: The Peace Corps Cross-Cultural Workbook,” which has led to me doing some thinking about diversity all morning, and especially, in light of something that happened earlier this week, skin color.
I’m about as white as a person from the United States can get: Irish-American decent, (dark) blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles, and when my skin is left unexposed to the sun for long periods of time, I’m the color of printer paper. In Cambodia, the whiter you are, the more beautiful you are. Since I arrived here, I have been told over and over how beautiful I am, and the compliments have only come more as I’ve lost a significant amount of weight. (Yeah, being thin here is also highly valued. Yay body policing!)
At first, I was bothered by it. Then, I started to accept it. Now, when people compliment my skin color, I joke with them about how “tan” is considered beautiful in the US, not the pasty white that I am. But, as I joke more about it, it’s come full circle to bothering me again. I mean, it’s nice to be complimented, but it’s also weird in a way.
Earlier this week, I was reaching to grab something in my health center with some patients in the room, and my shirt lifted a bit and exposed my (printer-paper white) stomach. The women in the room immediately started telling me how beautiful my stomach is and asked why I let my arms start to get “k’mau” (black) like their skin color. I told them that white may be beautiful here, but dark, like my arms are getting, is more beautiful in the states. I explained about people spending long days in the sun and about tanning beds (with the limited Khmer that I had to explain these, haha).
Also this week, I went to buy soap, and sometimes, it’s really hard to find soaps without “whitening” products in them. I had to explain to the merchant that I wanted a bar of soap “ut me-in bpoah sah” 1) since I don’t feel like exposing myself to those chemicals and 2) I’m white enough already. Almost all of the soap commercials I have seen on TV have emphasized the “whitening” formula, hoping to gain customers. I mean, sometimes some women look ridiculous, with dark bodies and really white faces, either from the chemicals or because of makeup.
As thoughts of whitening chemicals and tanning beds swirled around my head, so did thoughts of “the grass is always greener” and thoughts of the ways we are killing ourselves with beauty. Alas, the Gender Studies Degree was not a waste of time. But in all seriousness, it’s an interesting study in the ways we try to conform (or not) to what our different societies deem acceptable. Regulations in some states in the US have been proposed for the use of tanning beds by people under a certain age, due to a threat of skin cancer… I wonder if those same ideas could someday influence law-makers in countries where whitening skin products are sold, after the effects of those whitening chemicals are researched and known (if they aren’t already).
I’ll leave you with this little tidbit (which I think I mentioned before, but is worth a second mention): My training host dad was a teacher before the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975. If you know the history of the KR, you know they tried to eliminate all of the intellectuals, etc, which included teachers. My host dad was spared killing because he was “too dark” to have possibly been a teacher/intellectual. Dark skin = working in the fields all day.
I hope this post got you thinking!
3 comments:
Heyo!
The same is in most Asian countries actually. I know in Taiwan, being white/associated with white means you're climbing up the social ladder as well. My parents were always about my brother and I finding a "good Chinese boy/girlfriend... unless they're white. Danny can't handle white girls though, because they're too mean."
White means not having to labor in the fields. It represents delicacy and purity.
It may or may not also represent death. Think uncanny valley-- as you approach a certain paleness, it hits a point of 'oh god, why!?'
As for Americans liking tan, I imagine it represents the exotic. It's always tan to a certain point though. Once you get near black, it's bad.
Isn't it sad how in both Asia and the Western world, black is the worst?
Hey thanks for posting this, this is much like slavery with African Americans. You had the field workers (darker skin) and the workers in the home(lighter skin). Interestingly enough even though tanned skin is desired by many in the United States, an actual darker complexion of skin is not so much. Its very interesting that they are selling the lighting soap there. They also have that in some of the local beauty supply stores here in NYC. I know there is a subset of the population here that do utilize such lighting products.
Oh the pressure, with skin color.... anywho thanks for sharing your exprience and reflection.
Good morning how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Cambodia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Cambodia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez
Post a Comment