[Fern]

This is a topic I’ve wondered about a lot. When I look in the mirror in summertime, after I’ve gotten some sun, I think I look much better than in winter, when my skin is very pale. I think that’s just fashion, and I am subject to its influence, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me, because it usually takes several years (now that I’m 50) for me to start liking something new. But eventually my tastes change, and if alabaster skin ever came into vogue, within a couple of years I’d be on the bandwagon (it would happen sooner than usual because of the health benefits, I think.) The other part of your question is even more interesting to me: Why is dark skin bad? I was astonished to discover that even in Sri Lanka, where I lived for a couple of years in the mid-’90s, and which shares a great deal culturally with India, darker shades of brown skin were considered ugly, and lighter ones desirable. In arranged-marriage advertisements for husbands and wives, ‘fair’ was a big plus. I once mentioned to a Lankan co-worker who was relatively very progressive that I tended to confuse two of my students because they looked very much alike to me. She responded with astonishment. ‘But the one is fair and the other dark,’ she said. This was such an important factor that she saw no similarity. I was once introduced to a monk in Thailand (where people often fluff white baby powder on their faces and arms after a bath, because, I was told, they like the looks of it) who hadn’t had much contact with foreigners. When asked if he had any questions he’d like to ask me, he queried, ‘Why do people from the West lie in the sun on the beach?’ I was embarrassed to have to answer that. The truth is, though, that after living for a time surrounded by people of all shades of brown skin, I would often look at a white person and think, ‘How ugly! Is that how I look?’

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Name : Fern, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Buddhist, Age : 50, City : Boise, State : ID, Country : United States, Occupation : ESL teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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