White Skin, Dark Skin... Has There Been Any Scholarly Work On This?

[LarryBird]

Every time I hear the phrase กลัวดำ and other such statements, it makes me cringe. Also , having kids and listening to people talk about how white their skin is makes me want to vomit. It's 2012, after all..

I've asked around if this issue is talked about much in Thai schools, and the answer I get is 'no'. My intuition is that the Adjarn's and the likes help to perpetuate this belief as they benefit from it, and see it as a justified generalization. And the people I've asked have also said, that Thailand doesn't have a problem of treating people differently based on skin color... However, when I go in the banks, all that I see are people working with very light skin. Is this a coincidence?

I wonder if there is anyone out there trying to tackle this issue? Or , am I making this all up? I hear often men talk about women having white skin/dark skin.. This is not just in my head.

I'm posting this in this forum as the people here have at least tried to get to know more about Thailand then I think happens in a lot of other forums.. Hoping to have an intelligent discussion.

Thanks,

LB

[rgs2001uk]

It can be summed up in one word, image.

Also rears itself in the form of face, no its not just in your head, its everywhere.

Not confined to only Thailand, but common throughout Asia.

[Parvis]

This exists not only throughout Asia - but rather throughout the World.

We are indeed - to a significant extend - a product of our immediate environment - inhibitions, prejudices etc. etc. are acquired from our social environment.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Parvis

[edwardandtubs]

This thread has nothing to do with Thai language!

[villagefarang]

Sure doesn’t take much to make you cringe and vomit. I hope you are at least doing it in Thai and with proper emphasis and tones, considering this is the language forum. This is 2012 after all and we should all be a little more worldly and tolerant of cultural differences. With all the problems in the world, one imagines there must be more cringe and vomit worthy topics.

[LarryBird]

Saying a woman isn't beautiful because she has dark skin is cool with you? Refusing someone a job because they have dark skin, and thus supressing an entire group of people, is fine with you? It's all Racism, and yes, it makes me sick. It's nice you justify it as 'cultural differences', and then make the person raising the issue look like the ignorant one. Gotta love these forums.

[edwardandtubs]

The only ignorance I see is your ignorance of forum etiquette by making these points in a completely inappropriate forum.

[weary]

Is your vomiting helping anybody so far?

So, there's a cosmetics industry that makes unbelievable amounts of money exploiting this penchant for skin colour. And there's generally an extreme emphasis on looks... apart from food and money, how other people look is what the majority of Thai people seem to talk about the most. Buddhism stemming from India also brought with ideas from the caste system where the whiter skinned ones are the upper castes. I've seen Buddhist texts saying that those who act humble will be reborn with 'bright skin'.

So yes, many Thais believe that this is a natural order of things. Good luck trying to make them see the error of their ways as an outsider.

[LarryBird]

Tx weary. That is very insightful.

Anyway, mods, please feel free to lock, delete, move this post.

Peace.

[sbk]

next time use the report button please.

moved to Pub

[tutsiwarrior]

I was with a Vietnamese woman who was a hotel manager, university educated and etc. and we were on our way to a party and traveling through the north Quang Binh countryside and I mentioned that the rice harvest was early this year and then she said something like: 'how dare you mention me in relation to agricultural activities...' and she was fairly light skinned and etc. but she was always a very friendly girl...

and she was always very friendly with her darker skinned associates that did the cleaning and I didn't understand...earlier with a prostitute in HCMC who was very dark skinned she always proudly paraded her stuff...she was quite remarkable and enjoyed watching old Hollywood movies on the TCM channel and I said: 'you are very beautiful..' and she said: 'are you sure? I am very dark skinned...' and then she uncovered her glorious nekkid brown body to illustrate...

she was ironical but she knew what was happenin'...

[doggie888888]

To the OP's point about bank workers, I have been to banks where darker skinned Thais are working. But I do notice more fair skinned Thais. However, is it racism or is it fairer skinned Thais having Chinese blood and due to the ethnic Chinese emphasis on education, these lighter skinned Thais tend to be more qualified? However, I have heard some Thai people I know (mix of fair and dark skinned) pooh-poohing people from Isaan (e.g. oh they are so unreliable and dishonest) although I am not sure what that's about.

[Rsquared]

When I was a young kid I always cheered for the "indians" in cowboy and indian movies, I always detested the "slavery of blacks" in America (I am Aussie) and have always considered that "black is beautiful" ( I am fair skinned and prone to turning lobster red after 7 nanoseconds exposed to the sun).

My Thai wife is the "black sheep of the family" (sorry for all the puns) and when we first met she described to me the mentality of asians that fair skin is considered beautiful and dark skin is considered ugly.

Just look at all the advertisements with regard to cosmetics around the globe and see how they differ from race to race.

It is sad that we have a gene that makes us want to be something other than what we are.

I love my black sheep...and she loves her white trash.

[DocN]

I think the OP is right!

This whole cr@p runs under "cultural differences"?

So...I guess Apartheid, was just some kind of folklore as well?!

2 things are astonishing to me:

1) the people who are willing to accept each and every bullsh@t in any place, just because it some kind of "Culture". (Wasn't "burning witches a form of culture, too?)

2) just because it maybe culture...why do I have like, accept or even tolarete it?

My gf is a little dark...I just told her, not to bother me with that. And everytime "Whitening products" show up in our household...they go straight into the bin.

My kind of "reversed culture"...

[ivan96822]

It's terrible that in the year 2012, dark skinned people still face discrimination issues despite all of the things history has shoved in our faces. Bad enough that blacks were discriminated against for decades in Amerikkka...to see that dark-skinned persons in any country are being treated unfairly is a slap in history's (and any country this practice takes place in) face.

[Ulysses G.]

I hope that you guys solve discrimination against ugly people next. It might take a while though.

[villagefarang]

I hope that you guys solve discrimination against ugly people next. It might take a while though.

Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too young, too old, too ugly, too good looking, too rich, too poor, too stupid, too smart…and the list continues. You guys have your work cut out for you.

[LarryBird]

I hope that you guys solve discrimination against ugly people next. It might take a while though.

Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too young, too old, too ugly, too good looking, too rich, too poor, too stupid, too smart…and the list continues. You guys have your work cut out for you.

Ya man, we all need to just like, chill out , man.. Thailand is a really chill place, and like, the vibe and energy is just like amazing, and like the cultural differences and the peace I get from buddhism, is just like, so surreal,, I like, can't even explain what it does for my overall perspective, man... Everyone's just so happy and chill.. Like they really have the right outlook..

[villagefarang]

If you think your dark skin, primitive featured girlfriend is beautiful that is really sweet but don’t expect her to not be moved by the 60 million Thais who don’t agree with you. Comfort her and reassure her but don’t completely disregard her angst over her looks. Even if everyone was blind, I still suspect there would be discrimination based on vocabulary, accent, tone of voice and a variety of other vocal cues.

Dark skinned people differentiate between their different shades, so what. Some people have a preference for a certain eye color, hair color or nose shape. Get over yourself and like what you like and let other like what they like. You are not going to change anything.

[LarryBird]

My wife is a Thai Chinese Ajarn. Good call , though.

[jinjinswing]

I tell my dark skinned dates that white Australian girls pay big dollars to paint them selves tan so they can look like them... they find this amusing and hopefully liberating.

[tutsiwarrior]

and then there was the indonesian girlfriend who was a very dark skinned malay woman with the usual musky aroma to her dark skinned flesh...and here is tutsi, cuddling up and saying: 'you are beautiful and I think that I am falling in love...'...and then she would sleepily mutter 'bohong' and reached fer me organ...

and...I was in love as I realized some years later... and 'bohong' resonates like a large temple bell and I imagine her puffiing on a kretek clove cigarette years later and thinking: 'that tutsi was weird but he was a lovable guy...'

oh,

[LarryBird]

If you think your dark skin, primitive featured girlfriend is beautiful that is really sweet but don’t expect her to not be moved by the 60 million Thais who don’t agree with you. Comfort her and reassure her but don’t completely disregard her angst over her looks. Even if everyone was blind, I still suspect there would be discrimination based on vocabulary, accent, tone of voice and a variety of other vocal cues.

Dark skinned people differentiate between their different shades, so what. Some people have a preference for a certain eye color, hair color or nose shape. Get over yourself and like what you like and let other like what they like. You are not going to change anything.

It was fun zinging you, and then reading your profile after to find out I was accurate with my characterization of you. LOL

[chops]

They don't have a problem because there is no PC B.S. here.

Certainly it helps that there are no real racial minorities around(unlike the west) that can blame the color of their skin for their own failures..

Edited June 14, 2012 by chops

[GubXram]

IMO skin tone has nothing to do with race as many of the previous posts have alluded to. A person has either dark skin or light but this does not change your race. Its like saying a Caucasian who lives in Scandinavia and has had little sun, therefore has a light complexion, is a different race to a Caucasian living a beach bum lifestyle in California and thus having a dark complexion. It does not make sense?

My point is this; race is not based on skin tone but rather on ethnicity. So to call light vs dark complexion a racial issue does not fly. You can call it a racial issue when you call a spade a spade i.e. Thais (as in citizen, not race) of Chinese ancestry, for arguments sake, are more privileged than Thais with a Lanna ancestry, which inevitably left them with a legacy of dark skin. Nothing to do with skin tone.

PS. Apartheid had nothing to with skin tone, it was all about race. If it were about skin tone thousands of coloured people, this is not a derogatory term its an actual racial classification in SA, would never have had to suffer under the system.

Edited June 15, 2012 by GubXram

[LarryBird]

Semantics.

[tutsiwarrior]

I was with a Vietnamese woman who was a hotel manager, university educated and etc. and we were on our way to a party and traveling through the north Quang Binh countryside and I mentioned that the rice harvest was early this year and then she said something like: 'how dare you mention me in relation to agricultural activities...' and she was fairly light skinned and etc. but she was always a very friendly girl...

and she was always very friendly with her darker skinned associates that did the cleaning and I didn't understand...earlier with a prostitute in HCMC who was very dark skinned she always proudly paraded her stuff...she was quite remarkable and enjoyed watching old Hollywood movies on the TCM channel and I said: 'you are very beautiful..' and she said: 'are you sure? I am very dark skinned...' and then she uncovered her glorious nekkid brown body to illustrate...

she was ironical but she knew what was happenin'...

I was with a Vietnamese woman who was a hotel manager, university educated and etc. and we were on our way to a party and traveling through the north Quang Binh countryside and I mentioned that the rice harvest was early this year and then she said something like: 'how dare you mention me in relation to agricultural activities...' and she was fairly light skinned and etc. but she was always a very friendly girl...

and she was always very friendly with her darker skinned associates that did the cleaning and I didn't understand...earlier with a prostitute in HCMC who was very dark skinned she always proudly paraded her stuff...she was quite remarkable and enjoyed watching old Hollywood movies on the TCM channel and I said: 'you are very beautiful..' and she said: 'are you sure? I am very dark skinned...' and then she uncovered her glorious nekkid brown body to illustrate...

she was ironical but she knew what was happenin'...

and then here is tutsi at the hotel restaurant at 0630 in the morning as breakfast was being served and the Vietnamese hotel manager comes up and absent mindedly smooths my hair and then I look up at her meaningfully and then she becomes alarmed and hisses: 'get back ye bastid! and don't get any ideas...'

she was one of the craziest women I ever knew and I intend to return to southern Ha Tinh province as a surprise and to say hello...her weirdness probably had to do with her light skin and the associated identity confusion...

[DocN]

If you think your dark skin, primitive featured girlfriend is beautiful that is really sweet but don’t expect her to not be moved by the 60 million Thais who don’t agree with you. Comfort her and reassure her but don’t completely disregard her angst over her looks. Even if everyone was blind, I still suspect there would be discrimination based on vocabulary, accent, tone of voice and a variety of other vocal cues.

Dark skinned people differentiate between their different shades, so what. Some people have a preference for a certain eye color, hair color or nose shape. Get over yourself and like what you like and let other like what they like. You are not going to change anything.

...primitive featured...?

Yeah...def. doesnt look arian enough!

<deleted>?

[David006]

Scholarly work?...lol....

don't whether this is tongue in cheek or not....

http://www.teenink.c...-Skin-Epidemic/

Edited June 21, 2012 by David006

[tutsiwarrior]

Scholarly work?...lol....

don't whether this is tongue in cheek or not....

http://www.teenink.c...-Skin-Epidemic/

hey,man...I'se an asian woman skin color scholar...

recently a 16 y.o. niece has been around who would usually apply makeup to appear as white as possible...but now she has ditched all that and I see her pleasing round brown smiling face and I wanted to question her about that...but she would think that I was taking the piss so I hesitate and I'll ask the wife to ask instead...

btw, the wife doesn't mind being in the sun all day and is pleasantly brown colored...but I think that she is confident that she is more beautiful than most women and doesn't give a shit...hooray fer her...