a little coffee

I’m constantly amazed with the amount of students that not only comment, “oh! Your skin so white!” but ask me how it’s so white. “Uh. I was born this way,”I tell them. They’re a disapointed because it’s not because of one of the  bajillion whiting creams you can buy here. Ponds even has a line of skin whiting products. Once summer fully hits, all the Doodles will start walking around with umbrellas so their skin doesn’t get any hint of tan.

I asked our new Chinese tutor, Annie, why the obession with white skin. (She was shocked that Americans prefer tanned skin). She explained that “traditionally” dark skin, “black” skin is dirty. And white is clean. Oh?

“No, no. It’s not racism… it’s just tradition…” she said, seeing Chris and I exchange a look. Oh?

My theory is that it has something to do with peasants. These Doodles are only a generation from peasanthood and extreme poverty. Peasants are outside working in the fields, in the sunlight, getting a nice tan and yes, a little dirty too. The peasants shack-homes probably weren’t the cleanest either, from the looks on the outside. So I can see there could develop a preference for white skin- as proof that you’re more well-to do, “cleaner” and delicate. Europeans and American, in general, were like that a couple hundred years ago.

It seems like an easy leap to make, once you start referring to a person’s skin as dirty that that person becomes dirty, lesser.  On multiple occasions Chris and I either directly encountered or been told stories about these rampant generalizations. One Chinese teacher, Marvin, a funny, good-natured guy, admitted to us that he thought all black people were “bad” because the one black American he met caused some trouble here in Anyang. (He also made that same assumption about Americans).  A local swimming pool wouldn’t let a foreign teacher from Cameroon swim there because he was black.  I remembered back to October when Chris and I had our pictures taken with a couple of his students. One of them, Lucy, was appalled that her skin was the “blackest” in the photo!