White is the New Yellow

Before the start of Hollywood, white pale skin was considered beautiful because it meant that you were not a laborer working out in the sun all day. When Hollywood came around and everyone saw the tan the actors and actresses had due to filming in the Californian sunshine all day, they thought tanned skin was beautiful and this notion is still widely held today. Every spring, there are millions of women running out to the tanning salon, buying bronzers and self-tanners in hope of getting that gorgeous bronze skin before swimsuit season hits. Who knew that across the Pacific Ocean though, in countries like Korea and China, that women are not running to get dark, but are instead running to get white...

Growing up, I always though all Asian people have yellow skin, it’s what I saw on television, and it’s what my friends told me and it never seemed odd to me because I did see a golden tint to my skin while growing up. It was not until I took my first trip to Hong Kong and began exposing myself to East Asian culture that I realized all the girls there are pale white. Everywhere I looked, there were these pale sick-looking girls walking around the streets and in print ads all over the city that I realized: Asians aren’t yellow, they’re white.

Whitening/bleaching cosmetic products have been flying off the shelves in countries such as China, Korea, and Japan. Women are striving for the Michael Jackson effect as they walk down the streets with their wide-brimmed hats and parasols, shielding themselves from any potential sunrays. I think this definitely has to do with the “whiteness” Hook was describing in “Selling Hot ________.” Being white seems like a powerful beautiful thing to these women and that is why they are striving to get as close to that as possible. That is probably also why getting the eye-lid surgery is also a trendy thing to do in East Asia. Losing the infamous “chinky” eyes will make them “more” white.