Friday, July 6, 2007

Sunless Tanner, Umbrellas and Cancer

Today I put on the makeup that the Maybaline sales person had picked out for me as the best match for my skin. We tried three colors and she started out the lightest color. This I have come to realize would be a huge compliment here. Clearly I did not have the lightest color of skin. So I shook my head and pointed to the darker color. So she grabbed for the next to lightest color, not the one that I had pointed at. Again it was clearly to light for my skin and the only thing that I could understand her saying is that my hand skin, where she was trying the makeup was a lot different than my facial skin. Hm… true but my face is really not that light. So finally after much persuasion in all the sign language I could help her understand I got her to try the next color. I was still not convinced but it had to be done. It seems she couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. I bought the color and I have officially been inaugurated into the culture of “white is beautiful”. Neutragena, Maybeline, Olay, Loreal… they all have whitening therapy for the skin. They sell Chinese women whitening cream.

Not only that but certain things are also supposed to make your skin white. I was eating squishy tofu (that’s code for fresh tofu in Sichuan spices) one day and a graduate student leaned over with a smile of approval not because the tofu would give me protein but apparently it would make my skin whiter… I almost dropped my chopsticks!!

The Sichaun spice is suppose to whiten your skin too! The pool isn’t open until 4 because the Chinese don’t want to be in the “sunshower”. The umbrellas and parcels are sold in mass and used in even more mass when even one ray of sun is sliding through the clouds! Amy had this idea that she could find sunless tanner here in Chengdu. After nasty or confused looks from about 10 shop keepers her dreams were dashed and she gave up on her mission to find it. The shopkeepers look at her as if she is asking for a huge bowl of Crisco so she can get fat quick! The sunless tanner is replaced by whitening cream. The yellow, polka dot bikinis are replaced by pretty, pink parcels. The tanning oil is replaced by SPF in the makeup and all moisturizers. And the skin cancer is replaced by esophageal cancer.

If only they could make smoking (including second hand) culturally as ugly as dark skin then they would be able to do a paradigm shift in public health.

I had a whiter face today, something I’ve never said in the middle of the summer! Maybe I’ll start using my new SPF moisturizer!

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