Hey everyone! After 3 flights that added up to 21 hours, and 2 layovers, I'm FINALLY in Thailand! The flights were pretty good. On my flight to Alaska, I was stuck next to an old Vietnamese man who was extremely drunk and then proceeded to get sick and pass out. So they had to call a medical emergency. Other than that, the only it was pretty uneventful. Except for the length- which was excrutiating.
As soon as we got there, we went straight to the hotel where we will be staying the next week and a half before we go to our homestays. After that we went to dinner where we met our Thai buddies! They are students at Chiang Mai University who are English majors, and their assignment is to help us with anything we need the next two weeks while we are getting acquainted with the city. They are awesome, and we are already close friends. They are very giving with their time, helping us with everything we need to do. They translate everything for us, help us order food (which is WAY difficult, espeically because we can't even sound out the letters) and today helped us by cell phones!
Thailand is SO warm and beautiful. Every surface is covered with flowers and greenery. Our Thai buddies were complaining that it was too cold outside when it was 75 degrees... it's their winter. They all wear jackets until its past 85. They also wear jackets because they do not want to get tan. In their culture, the more pale you are, the more beautiful you are. They buy lotions with whitner in it so their skin looks white. Even their deoderant has whitener in it. One girl was telling me that because she has dark skin- which we associate with Thai people- Thai boys do not want to date her. Thai guys find Thai girls attractive if they look white with Thai features- and the only way you can achieve that is buy being Khan- half Thai, half European- which is very rare. Isn't that so interesting that every is trying to achieve rarity when we in America think that being tan is beautiful? They are trying to escape the beauty God has given them because white is ideal in this world. I wonder why the way the majority of people are never seen as beautiful, but it always has to be a rare minority.
For dinner today, me and some other Americans ventured out into Chiang Mai without our buddies for dinner.. and it took us two hours to find food we could manage to order. That was interesting. Hopefully our first language class will teach us how to order food.
Tomorrow I ride elephants to the top of a mountain and visit an orchid farm! Can't wait, and love you all!
<3 Kitty
I think there's a pretty straight-forward reason Thais tend to prefer fair skin (not necessarily white skin). Since Thailand is mostly poor and rural, most of the population performs manual labor outdoors. That, of course, means they get very tanned. In order to have fair skin, you have to be able to afford to not work outdoors. Fair skin, then is a status symbol.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, in the West, we often prefer to be tan -- but not any tan; not a farmer's tan. We prefer the tan that comes with having the time and resources to lay about in the sun and using expensive lotions to help achieve the perfect tan. In that regard, being tan is a status symbol.
So, what does your socio-anthropological mind think of that?
(I loved elephant rides. Elephants are so cool.)