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| No light, no light..tell me what you want me to say.. |
One of the first things I noticed in Thailand
is a certain obsession with white skin,
which is essential for their concept of beauty.
Snooping around the shelves of a 7 Eleven,
I was shocked by the variety of whitening facial creams
(far more common than whitening toothpaste..!)
and I started trying to understand what the real impact
was on the people around me.
In Bangkok,
you could see girls (and boys) applying those whitening creams or some sort
of a white foundation
as much as you see girls wearing make up here in Europe,
but the real surprise was yet to come.
In fact, it was in the islands,
were many women from other asian countries move
because of the great job market created by tourism,
that I realized that this white-craze is nothing of the last century!
Instead, white skin has been such a stats symbol and a canon,
that for Burmese women
(current Myanmar)
wearing a white, thick and sandlike mask
on their faces and arms
is even considered a traditional mark of identity,
something like polynesians' tattoos
or tribal body piercing.
Therefore it is really easy to find oneself in the middle of some tiny village
sheltered by palm trees and cliffs
where your gaze will cross that of black almond-shaped eyes
cut on white and wondering masks,
giving you the impression of taking part in
some sort of a surreal mise en scène.
ps.
far less poetic
and way more alarming,
here you have an article talking about the real
"pharmaceutical" side of this white-craze
(including some vagina-whitening products)
