mrveitch

My site mate had students doing presentations and one group chose beauty standards. Every slide had pictures of blonde, blue eyed white people on them.

We teach in Sichuan, China.

When asked why these faces were so beautiful, the answer was because they’re American. When reminded that their teacher and I are both Americans yet look nothing like the pictures they presented, we were reminded that while we are handsome, we are not as handsome as white people. While my site mates eyes aren’t boring brown, they aren’t blue either.

Historically, fair skin has consistently been part of the standard of beauty in China largely through its association with wealth. Women with fair skin spent your days inside being pampered rather than outside working the fields.Today field work is less common but the obsession  (I say obsession because the health risks are completely ignored) with fair skin is alive and thriving. The addition of blonde hair and blue eyes to the desired aesthetic is more recent, has foreign roots, and is much more damaging.

New American imperialism is quite clever. Despite being overt and in your face (Hollywood), it is also manages to be incredibly sneaky (Chinese people think they invented Kit Kats) and intrusive (McDonalds), and therefore is more sustainable. America is invading China by eroding their perceptions of beauty (and identity and a hundred other things I can talk about elsewhere). China is convinced that Americans only come in two configurations- blond blue eyed white male or blonde blue eye white female, and these archetypes are the most beautiful in the world; even more so than those that exist within their own society. The repercussions of this have been explored in the incredibly sobering Clark experiment and similar, more recent experiments such as the one in Mexico. I’m not sure what all this means for the future of China, but I can speak to what it’s like for black Americans, but at this rate, it appears that all the efforts to preserve Chinese essence will have had been in vain.

A short look at Chinese perception of foreigners to follow