The Asian Evil Queens

"Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

Except it's not a Mirror on the wall but rather a whitening product on the supermarket shelves.


I couldn't help but notice that all the products has skin whitening effect added to them. starting with Vaseline , sun protection lotion, all Nivea and Dove's products and basically any other skin lotion. Not to mention face wash, soap, shower gels, herbs and traditional products. Even underarm products (which by the way - and lets be honest- can be useful if you are a razors user) ! and the list goes on and on.

   
I didn't see how serious the Asian culture takes this fairness thing until I started getting comments ( at least more than 16 people) about my skin and I'm not even WHITE white. Basically they all express the same amazement as if I was a freak show but in a nice way. minus the pinching and slapping part which I'll get back to later on.



I went to this beautiful town in the suburbs of Jakarta, Indonesia and met amazing friendly families . They greeted me with smiles and big hugs without even knowing who I was. Some of them even invited me to sit down with them and have a chat. Bear in mind that none of us spoke the other's language. No it wasn't a complete disaster as some of you might think. In fact, it was a very pleasant experience. (Again, minus the slapping and pinching)

I sat down under this outhouse seat with a family and their neighbours and they all were talking about my skin and my eyelashes and suddenly an old woman in her 60's approached us with her husband and greeted me with a big hug and smile and then sat down beside me and started slapping my legs and pulling my arm saying she wished she had my skin . I had my Indonesian friend II at that moment to explain what she was saying. She would pull my skin - pinching it to be more specific- and repeat the word Cantik, Cantik ( pronounced chantic ) which means pretty or beautiful. A word I was familiar with since I've heard it before from my Indonesian roommate in Malaysia.
MIMI is her name. she spoke very little English but we communicated just fine throughout the 3 weeks we spent together.
Mimi was no different from the rest of Asian girls. She wanted to have lighter and brighter skin and so, she had a daily routine of applying all kind of different products on her body before bed.

Not to put the spotlight on Asian girls or criticise them but rather to feed my curiosity on how or what made these beautiful Asian girls think of fairness as an absolute standard of beauty. After a lot of thinking and a little of reasearch I came to the conclusion that the British (Western) colonisation came to establish the colour superiority syndrome. The colour symbolised or rather categorised people's status from inferior workers ( working under the sun) to White men who came with wealth and power to invade their country. This Idea can simply be put as White is better than dark and so this was mentally established and gradually became a beauty standard.

What's in it for me or how does it affect me? Other than the pinching, the stares and comment about my skin? Only how hard It's been for me to find inexpensive moisturisers and face wash without any whitening agent in them. I mean, how whiter could I actually get ?