Pfft. I dunno what’s going on in Oz, but every girl here between the ages of 15 and 29 is a tanning-salon addict.
And I live in Florida.
They were here until this happened.
Google “Clare Oliver” for more info.
I’ve never heard anyone say getting a tan will make them smarter. More attractive, yes. Granted, the guy quoted in the story was probably an idiot.
Also, I think tanning has only been sexy in the West for part of the last century.
I’m sure hair-straighening products for black people are still out there, although they’re probably less crazy than conking, which I’m pretty sure involved lye.
Plenty of hair relaxers are on the market, since a majority of black women straighten their hair. And they are lye-based products.
That guy may have meant smart in the sense of being fashionable-- “She was smartly dressed.” We don’t know how fluently he speaks English, or if he was speaking English at all, or if the translator was feeling anachronistic that day–give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
Arpound the 24 second amrk in that first commercial, did I hear the narrator say “American double-strength”?’
Also, after seeing those commercials, I wonder how relevant those commercials are? Aren’t love relationships still fairly rare in India? No matter how light you make yourself, wouldn’t most men still find themselves in relationships arranged by their parents rather than meeting women off the street?
I assume you mean Korea as well, since that is your heritage. But I’ve never met a dark Korean or Korean American in my life. East Asians, in my limited experience, don’t seem any darker than Caucasians.
Does the desire to lighten the skin occur mainly among farmers and the like, who presumably get darker from being outside so much, and hence wish to appear more like “city folk”?
A few more hilarious Indian skin lightening cream commercials:
Fair and Lovely: put on some skin cream, and become a model!
Now so light, not even the Indian immigration officer thinks she’s Indian.
And another …
Uhhh … rejected because she’s a bit on the dark side, but with Fair and Lovely, she now gets the man. If there was an equivalent to this commercial for a weight loss product in the US, it would be seen as deeply offensive.
I would guesstimate that at least 50% of marriages in India are “love matches” - ie. not arranged.
A certain percentage of those, though, might be expedient marriages masquerading as true love - the girl got knocked up, the guy got a job with her dad, something like that.
I’m trying to remember where I read about guys in Cambodia going to prostitutes and being unable to get oral sex until they decided to convince the girls that the reason Vietnamese women had such light skin was that they ingested semen…
ETA: Found it!
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: The cream magically turns her into a light-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed woman… do these people really want to look like that?! How sad and twisted!
It’s all relative. I would say Yong-ae Lee would be considered the ideal shade, while Hyori would be too dark.
Actually, I have also been told I’m not pale enough. (That’s me in the winter.)
I’m sure Hyori tans on purpose, but she’s trying to portray a certain kind of image, and it’s definitely not the “nice girl you want to marry” image.
Being pale has always been a status symbol, of course, but for girls it’s associated with images of purity and fragility, which are ideal qualities for women in Korean culture, traditionally. For a while all the most popular TV dramas had girls wasting away of leukemia. The society is changing, but it still has a long way to go.
Along these lines, I think the Japanese ganguro girl subculture is an interesting reaction against these ideals. Or at least it seems to be–any Japan-based dopers have a view on this?
Eeek! It’s J-Paris Hilton!
Victorian novels loved to have girls wasting away of consumption–it was romantic. They would just get paler and more ethereal and angelic until they faded away. I wrote a paper about it in college! 
I’m pale skinned, blue eyed and never have chicks or guys flinging themselves at me.
Signed,
Flungless in Midwest
That’s funny, my wife is a bit more light-skinned than you, but is always trying to tan… but then she’s never been a typical Korean girl; always a bit weird (she married me, Q.E.D.)
I love being tan. I tan quite easily, actually. One of the many reasons I prefer to live in the US.
Man, here’s me in February; I didn’t alter the photo (brightness or anything; just shot it on auto settings outside) or use any tints (I had just gotten back from the hair salon, which is why my hair is a super bright red). I’d be beating off guys* with a stick if I visited some of Asia, I think! 
[/ tongue firmly in cheek]
- [sub]heh heh heh heh[/sub]
Ugh, this whitening thing gets to my nerves some times.
I´ve been wanting to take a diving course since I arrived to Thailand over a year ago, thing is, I´d like to take it with my girlfriend since it would be nice that, when we go on holidays we could go diving together. She won´t do, the reason?, because it would tan her skin. :smack:
Honey, you realize that when you´re diving you´re 20 meters down the surface wearing a rubber suit?, how on Earth are you going to get a tan that way? You silly thing.