The Lure of "White Skin" in Thailand - Racism in Thailand

[WaffleNinja]

 

I've read some articles that talk about a desire to look western. I.e. the trend in Korea to have plastic surgery done to their eyelids.

 

Koreans have explained to me that the double eyelid surgery is more about achieving neotenous/pedomorphic features, which are seen as very attractive in their culture.

[maybethestars]

Plastic surgery is actually incredibly common in South Korea. From what I understand, being attractive is almost a necessity there in order to be taken seriously as a person and career-wise. There was an article in the New Yorker a few months back about it. Its a long one, but here is a quote from the article:

“One factor is that, in contrast to Western cultures, the external aspects of self (your social status, clothes, gestures, and appearance) versus the inner aspects (thoughts and feelings) matter more here,” he explained. Suh described an experiment he did in which he gave students, both at Yonsei University and at the University of California at Irvine (where he once taught) a photograph and a written description of the same person. Which format, he asked the students, gives you a better understanding of this person? The Koreans chose the photograph, and the Americans chose the description. Suh, like others, partially attributes the Korean mind-set to Confucianism, which teaches that behavior toward others is all-important. He elaborated, “In Korea, we don’t care what you think about yourself. Other people’s evaluations of you matter more.”

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/about-face

 

Unfortunately I think this holds true partually as well in Thailand, at least in cities with more white collar workers.

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

I've been to a couple of Asian countries and have witnessed these skin whitening creams ect. I thought one was a moisturizer and was applying it to my sunburn and thought my sunburn had gone away in record time. Nope. I merely bleached my sunburn.

 

I'd also see women wearing long gloves, leggings, and umbrellas to stay out of the sun.

 

I've read some articles that trace it back to the idea that being pale equaled wealth because you weren't outside in the fields.

 

It takes some effort to find products that aren't skin whiteners here in Thailand. Most deoderant, soap, lotion, face wash, sun screen, etc. is all skin lightening. For men, too, which I don't see across the board in countries where this is prevalent.

I've read that in Isaan, which is a very poor and agrarian area, when people leave the rural lands to head to Bangkok for work it's referred to as "going to get a white face." So yes, means you're not working the fields in a very literal way. What I've found interesting is how this was a trend in the west for a very long time and only in the 20's was the tan associated with wealth because it meant leisure. You'd been on holiday somewhere warm. Apparently it was Flappers who really pushed forward this trend. Plump and pale was affluent because you were inside and didn't work, then suddenly thin and tanned was affluent because you were outside and didn't work.

In the west, being white but getting sun-kissed dark through leisure = good. But natural dark is still = bad. Sigh.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This is the next piece for the Asian Correspondent on race In Thailand Black is "Ugly", Racist or Misguided.

Lots of coverage of the different arguments about why racist (or racialist) stereotypes exist in Thailand, about the image above:

Last week a Thai children’s teaching resource appeared online. A poster, which is a vocabulary learning tool, shows pictures of objects and people presented next to a corresponding word. ‘Handsome’, we learn, looks something like a cartoonish Korean pop star; ‘beautiful’, a western babe; and ‘pretty’ looks something like a young female Japanese anime character. Meanwhile, ‘ugly’ is depicted as what looks like a young African man, replete with diamond stud bling earrings. At the bottom of the poster it is written in Thai: “A way to thinking and teaching.” If such an arrantly offensive description exists in a children’s ‘thinking and teaching’ aid, then what kind of thinking and teaching happens in some Thai households?

Thai social critic Kaewmala explains much of it in terms of xenophobic nationalism and class:

“Thais have a strong dislike and distrust of dark-skinned Burmese and Indians, and can find little beauty in dark skinned people, poor foreigners from neighboring countries, poorer fellow Thais from Isaan or Thai-Malay Muslims in the South, or Africans. Racism in the Thai cultural context is more intertwined with the chauvinistic attitude based on ultra-nationalism in Thai education which teaches us that we are better than our neighbors, and the Bangkok-centric worldview, interwoven with persistent discrimination based on class, urban vs rural and social-status hierarchies.”

There is also a link to an article Being Black in Thailand which presents first person perspectives of black experiences.

All in all, a very good continuation of the discussion.

[emma]

Here's a blog by an African-American guy living in Thailand and working as an English teacher (which is hard because many employers simply refuse to hire black teachers), FarangDam - Life in Asia from a Black Perspective.

[emma]

In addition to what I said before about racist comments from my students:

Yesterday, I was teaching a class about appearances and gave them pictures of different celebrities and asked them to tell me what they looked like. One of those pictures was of Wyclef Jean, which led one student to ask me "can I call him 'negro'?" When I responded with "absolutely not", they were puzzled. They genuinely didn't seem to know that it was an inappropriate or offensive term and thankfully, were very open to hearing my explanation, so I took time out of the class to make it very clear what words were OK and not OK for them to use and why, which is obviously not something I do when I have a student who makes an intentionally racist remark out of hate. I'm glad we were able to have that conversation.

Today, I had a one-on-one class with a university student who has a very high level of English. We chatted about lots of different subjects over the hour, including drug laws, police corruption Thailand and the US, the death penalty (a Thai judge has just handed out the first one in the country since 2009) and racism. A very interesting lesson, for sure. She said "as Thai people, we believe that we don't have racism, but we do, that's why most people want to be white and think that dark skin is ugly" and talked about how every advertisement shows light-skinned actors and models. It was very refreshing to hear that kind of response. Most of my students would be completely unaware or ignorant about it. I told her about what had happened in my lesson the previous day and she laughed and said that she'd had a similar experience with her friends, and had told all of them not to say certain words. She's an awesome student. 

[emma]

Here's a poster I saw on the BTS today. According to the text below, it's an ad for a campaign to urge people to take care of their bank notes in order to make them last longer. Apparently, that includes stopping black guys from stealing them from you....or something?  

[WaffleNinja]

That does seem to be the message. The fact that the Black guy is depicted with the "rapper industrial" facial hair and the previous drawing had the tattoos and studded earrings makes it seems more likely that these stereotypes are learned from American pop culture than as a remnant of interaction with Vietnam era soldiers or as a projection of stereotypes about Burmese or Indian people.

[Flora]

Thanks for posting this topic. I came across this video a while back and meant to post it here, but forgot.

It's a compilation of some more ads, which also includes the bear one, all translated into English. They're really quite shocking. 

I can't tell you how many times students of mine have made racist comments in my classes. It happens all the time, but here are a few examples, all from Thai students:

• One student had been on vacation in LA, and I asked her if she enjoyed it. We got onto the topic of transport, and I mentioned that I'd assumed you would have to get around by car. She remarked 'yes, public transport is very dangerous, a lot of black people get on'.
• An older lady had lived in Chicago for a few years. She said 'I'm afraid of black people. They're so big'.
• When I was discussing the idea of going to India with a student: 'No, I don't want to go. There are a lot of murderers and criminals'. When I asked her why she thought that, she simply said 'they have black skin'.
• Another student who'd just come back from a holiday in Bali said she had a lovely time there, 'but I don't like black people'.
• There was one particularly horrible student; a young, spoiled kid from a rich family. He boasted about how he'd attended Eton College in the UK, and liked to look down his nose at everyone else. He actually got kicked out of Eton for carrying a knife, which he claimed he needed to protect himself because he feared for his life after he'd called someone the N-word. Obviously, he didn't realise that he couldn't just say anything he wanted over there like he could at home. Thankfully, he thought he was too good to learn English, so despite his parents paying for a year-long course, he never came back, so we didn't have to deal with him. Good riddance.

My boyfriend is black, and we do get a lot of looks when we walk around in public. One student told me 'they don't look because they're racist. They look because it's something different'. A woman once got up and moved when he sat down next to her on the train, and there's no excuse for that. It's awful. He definitely feels very unwelcome in Thailand.

 

Emma, I was just wondering how are you dealing with this? Not only emotionally but actively, do you call them out? try to explain them that black doesn't equal criminal ; that humans whether they're good or bad it's not because of their skin color?

 

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

Emma, I was just wondering how are you dealing with this? Not only emotionally but actively, do you call them out? try to explain them that black doesn't equal criminal ; that humans whether they're good or bad it's not because of their skin color?

 

Not answering for Emma, but in terms of my experience and understanding of Thai culture, this is a very tricky and difficult thing to address. Firstly, it's an incredibly non-confrontational culture and addressing offenses directly can open up ALL KINDS of problems and misunderstandings. That doesn't mean that one can't or shouldn't call it out. What is a deeper difficulty is that the very concept of racism isn't something that can be easily expressed or even explained to a large swath of Thai society. It's not a widely recognized concept and the belief that "white is good" and "black is bad" is so pervasive that countering it is met with confusion, not comprehension.

[emma]

Emma, I was just wondering how are you dealing with this? Not only emotionally but actively, do you call them out? try to explain them that black doesn't equal criminal ; that humans whether they're good or bad it's not because of their skin color?

 

 

The way I react to it varies from day to day. Sometimes, especially when it's in a work situation and it's in front of other people (usually students), I will just move on with the lesson as quickly as possible, but there have been times where I've called them out on it. I actually have two incidents that happened in the last two days for you guys:

Yesterday, I was teaching a fairly low-level class with a doctors and patients theme, teaching them how to discuss symptoms and give advice. Towards the end, I overheard one 'patient' tell the 'doctor' that his problem was his 'black skin'. He was a little dark, but not that much (not that any shade would have made that comment OK). The doctor student responded with 'it's OK, you die and in the next life --'  I cut him off before he finished his sentence, but it seemed like he was about to insinuate that he would come back as light-skinned in the next life as some kind of reward for being dark-skinned in this one! He then advised him to go and live in Korea, 'because there is snow and everybody is white' (Korean beauty standards are a big thing here). Instead of dealing with that student directly, I turned to the patient student and said 'actually, you should go to my country, because a lot of people there love your skin colour and think it's beautiful'. 

Today, my boyfriend went to his new gym, which is owned by a Thai guy named Phil, who studied at an international school and speaks very good English. Phil's wife was there, who also speaks pretty good English. My boyfriend asked her 'how you living?' (he is laughably bad at grading his language) and she obviously didn't know what he meant. Her husband explained that he was asking her how she was doing and she turned to my boyfriend and said 'oh, sorry, I don't speak n***a'. He explained to her nicely that she should never ever say that, but he wasn't offended because he realised that she genuinely didn't know that it wasn't OK. Still, wow.

Also, one of my Thai coworkers gave me whitening cream as a Christmas gift on Saturday. I'm already white, but whatever. I'll be re-gifting that one.

[Flora]

Not answering for Emma, but in terms of my experience and understanding of Thai culture, this is a very tricky and difficult thing to address. Firstly, it's an incredibly non-confrontational culture and addressing offenses directly can open up ALL KINDS of problems and misunderstandings. That doesn't mean that one can't or shouldn't call it out. What is a deeper difficulty is that the very concept of racism isn't something that can be easily expressed or even explained to a large swath of Thai society. It's not a widely recognized concept and the belief that "white is good" and "black is bad" is so pervasive that countering it is met with confusion, not comprehension.

 

 

The way I react to it varies from day to day. Sometimes, especially when it's in a work situation and it's in front of other people (usually students), I will just move on with the lesson as quickly as possible, but there have been times where I've called them out on it. I actually have two incidents that happened in the last two days for you guys:

Yesterday, I was teaching a fairly low-level class with a doctors and patients theme, teaching them how to discuss symptoms and give advice. Towards the end, I overheard one 'patient' tell the 'doctor' that his problem was his 'black skin'. He was a little dark, but not that much (not that any shade would have made that comment OK). The doctor student responded with 'it's OK, you die and in the next life --'  I cut him off before he finished his sentence, but it seemed like he was about to insinuate that he would come back as light-skinned in the next life as some kind of reward for being dark-skinned in this one! He then advised him to go and live in Korea, 'because there is snow and everybody is white' (Korean beauty standards are a big thing here). Instead of dealing with that student directly, I turned to the patient student and said 'actually, you should go to my country, because a lot of people there love your skin colour and think it's beautiful'. 

Today, my boyfriend went to his new gym, which is owned by a Thai guy named Phil, who studied at an international school and speaks very good English. Phil's wife was there, who also speaks pretty good English. My boyfriend asked her 'how you living?' (he is laughably bad at grading his language) and she obviously didn't know what he meant. Her husband explained that he was asking her how she was doing and she turned to my boyfriend and said 'oh, sorry, I don't speak n***a'. He explained to her nicely that she should never ever say that, but he wasn't offended because he realised that she genuinely didn't know that it wasn't OK. Still, wow.

Also, one of my Thai coworkers gave me whitening cream as a Christmas gift on Saturday. I'm already white, but whatever. I'll be re-gifting that one.

Thanks Sylvie and Emma for answering, I would not have ever realize (even though I knew) how serious the problem was, and it is so interesting to see in which measure one can react. Your boyfriend is totally amazing for explaining she should not have call him this way and specified he is not offended ... I feel this is what we generally do with children 'oh they don't know', but we tend to forget that even adult from other culture 'don't know' what can just be commun sense here ...

 

Make me remember a conversation I had with a really good friend two days ago. She is from India and beside the cultural difference we are so alike, however sometimes she just makes really shocking comment to me. One day I teach her some french, and she says that she understood how to know if something is 'feminine' or 'masculine' (as everything is french is gendered), so I say "really I don't even know myself what's the trick... so tell me 'computer' and 'table' what's their gender?' And answer "easy, computer is masculine, because it is useful, table is feminine 'cause you can sit on it". It took me a few minutes to come back to earth, and understand how crazy her image of woman was. 

Yesterday, that same friend told me that a guy from our department told her she should be more pretty, but that well she would never be as pretty as a white-blond-blue-eyes girl. Again I was so shocked, we went into a big discusion about culture, racism, sexism, etc.

Related to your comment Emma (which I hope will help that darker person to feel good about themself), I told my friend that where I'm from (I haven't notice in Canada as much as in my home-island) "the darker, the prettier. So girl are in the beach getting a tan to feel pretty".

American movies or any other western movies, make it to Thailand right? And there is also good black people in it, does it shocked people there? (First time I watch a Thai movie, I remember a guy being completely treated like shit because he was black, but my first thought was that "it must be an old movie" ... now I'm not so sure anymore). 

[emma]

American movies or any other western movies, make it to Thailand right? And there is also good black people in it, does it shocked people there? (First time I watch a Thai movie, I remember a guy being completely treated like shit because he was black, but my first thought was that "it must be an old movie" ... now I'm not so sure anymore). 

 

Oh yeah, American movies are big here. TV shows, too. Lots of my students are fans of The Walking Dead and Prison Break. 

When I teach about crime and have my students describe a criminal to a police officer, they almost always describe a dark-skinned male. 9 times out of 10. 

On a more positive note, I've just discovered that there's a new Thai magazine called 'TAN', which is going against the grain and promoting darker skin by encouraging Thais to go outside and enjoy themselves rather than hiding under umbrellas or indoors and worrying about getting a tan.

 

"TAN, a new bilingual magazine founded by renowned Thai musician and rapper Joey Boy, will hit the racks Tuesday as it promotes the beach and travel culture. Going against the booming industry of whitening products in Thailand, TAN will embrace bronzed skin and encourage Thais to leave their air-conditioned comfort zone and go into the sunlight without being scared of getting darker

“We want to inspire people to be brave to go out and do something. Just go out in the sun and get tan. Whatever it is you want to do, do it, “ Joey Boy said in an interview with Woody Morning Talk.

The new magazine will feature real-life stories from various perspectives, along with travel tips, reviews and activities in Thai destinations for both native and foreign explorers.

As a cycling traveler himself, Joey Boy says, “Sometimes we don’t even know where we want to go. We all get stuck in crowds and traffic. TAN wants people to go travel in their own style, instead of following popular attractions and trends.”

The print and online magazine will be in both Thai and English. To start the “TANism” movement, the first issue’s cover topics include beach addiction, travel savvy and hedonism, with stories from the founder of Herschel Supply Lyndon Cormack and Vogue model Kusuma Chawdon.

Several celebrities and social media influencers who love beaches and bronzed skin will feature in an online campaign where they give their thoughts on tanned skin to promote the magazine."

- See the full article here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flora]

Thanks Emma for the info ;) (double-win, as I was trying to find Thai rap haha!)

[515]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/820268/be-white-to-win-skin-pill-ad-campaign-blasted-as-racist

[emma]

I just wanted to add some examples of how migrant workers in Thailand, particularly those from Myanmar, are looked down upon quite a lot here. 

One of my students is from Myanmar and when another teacher asked her if she felt as though Thai people saw her as different and how they acted towards her, she struggled to find the words to explain so pulled out her phone to use the dictionary. When she turned the phone around to show the teacher, it read 'disdain'. 

Earlier this week, I was telling one of my classes about how someone once attempted to pickpocket me in Chiang Mai. One student responded with 'they must have been from Myanmar. Not Thai'. 

[muaythailand-jitsinbrazil]

black doll with red lips; totally mistral "black face."    this character is from a Thai old fable  เงาะป่า  

 

Down in the Red Light District of Pattaya there are these carts piled high with stuffed animals, the type you would win at a carnival game, that are sold to the drunken customers in the bars. I assume western men buy them for the Thai bar girls. Mostly it's bears and rabbits and the kind of crap you'd expect, but there's also this huge - huge, like the size of a 6-year-old person - black doll with red lips; totally mistral "black face."  It's always there, so I'm assuming it doesn't sell, rather than that these carts just have to keep this awesome item stocked. But, much like the insane T-shirts you find in English here in Thailand, my question is, "who the f*ck is making this product for sale?"

My point is, Thailand doesn't have the history of "black face" that the US does. Thailand doesn't have the same history of racism and oppression against African-originating black skin that the west does. But that doesn't mean that "black face" means something much different. It's still poking fun at something (and someone) perceived to be inferior. While the concept of "blackness" and dark skin is not identical to the history we've made for ourselves in the west, the racism isn't much different.

And, as White persons in the west we are far less exposed to the pressure that People of Color in the west feel to purchase products that push toward "whiteness." Hair relaxers and straighteners, skin bleach, contacts, wigs, weaves, etc. The market for this stuff is huge. The fact that we don't see it on TV and in the mainstream magazines goes to show just how privileged whiteness is (we'd only see advertisements for white skin becoming whiter), rather than that we're somehow "post racism".

 

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

I just wanted to add some examples of how migrant workers in Thailand, particularly those from Myanmar, are looked down upon quite a lot here. 

One of my students is from Myanmar and when another teacher asked her if she felt as though Thai people saw her as different and how they acted towards her, she struggled to find the words to explain so pulled out her phone to use the dictionary. When she turned the phone around to show the teacher, it read 'disdain'. 

Earlier this week, I was telling one of my classes about how someone once attempted to pickpocket me in Chiang Mai. One student responded with 'they must have been from Myanmar. Not Thai'. 

 

I just wanted to add some examples of how migrant workers in Thailand, particularly those from Myanmar, are looked down upon quite a lot here. 

One of my students is from Myanmar and when another teacher asked her if she felt as though Thai people saw her as different and how they acted towards her, she struggled to find the words to explain so pulled out her phone to use the dictionary. When she turned the phone around to show the teacher, it read 'disdain'. 

Earlier this week, I was telling one of my classes about how someone once attempted to pickpocket me in Chiang Mai. One student responded with 'they must have been from Myanmar. Not Thai'. 

Pi Nu was telling me about that horrible attempted rape in which that man broke into his neighbor's house and murdered her. He said very matter-of-factly that this guy was Burmese, to which his cousin shook his head and said that wasn't so. Same with the murders in Kho Thao, right, scapegoating those Burmese migrant workers.

[Kaitlin Rose Young]

While visiting Thailand this past month, I have had two teammates with me from the US who happen to be black. Uber in Bangkok is super convenient if you don't speak the language well, as you can designate your location and where you'd like to go with just a pin drop on a map. 

We often would go to the mall or wherever as a group, and we couldn't help but notice how often our rides would be canceled when my teammate booked them from his phone. Mine always went through just fine. We started wondering if something was wrong with the app....but I have a strong suspicion that having an avatar of a Black male may have had a lot to do with it. 

[emma]

While visiting Thailand this past month, I have had two teammates with me from the US who happen to be black. Uber in Bangkok is super convenient if you don't speak the language well, as you can designate your location and where you'd like to go with just a pin drop on a map. 

We often would go to the mall or wherever as a group, and we couldn't help but notice how often our rides would be canceled when my teammate booked them from his phone. Mine always went through just fine. We started wondering if something was wrong with the app....but I have a strong suspicion that having an avatar of a Black male may have had a lot to do with it. 

That's really shitty, but sadly unsurprising.

Recently, I was walking down Sukhumvit road at around midnight with a friend (another white woman) and my boyfriend. Some policemen stopped us and asked for our passports, which has never happened to me before, although it's happened to my boyfriend more times than he can count. Usually, if you don't have you passport, they'll 'fine' you, and you have to bribe your way out of it. We didn't have our passports, but thankfully, I was able to get us out of it just by speaking Thai and being polite. I'm pretty certain that if it had been just me and my friend, we wouldn't have had a problem.