Skin

Our nanny Cat and our maid Jipp have dark skin. A few days ago, our three year old daughter Aleena, not familiar with the impact of the pigment melanin on skin color, asked each why they had rubbed chocolate all over their skin. They both laughed and told the story to my wife, who in turn told me.

My daughter's made me start thinking about skin color here in Thailand. Thai's have a wide variety of natural skin tones. Some Thai's have skin that is dark brown, while others have light skin. The color difference can be made even greater depending on whether an individual spends a lot time in the sun.

Unlike many Americans who seek to darken their skin through tanning booths and extended sun exposures, Thai's generally prefer to have lighter skin color. I can't recall seeing a Thai person laying out sunning themselves. They often wear longer clothing to avoid the sun.

I think there are a few reasons for this. First, the preference is in part based on perceived social and economic status. Farmers and manual laborers, the bulk of the Thai workforce for certain, spend a lot of time in the sun and usually have dark skin. Their middle and upper class office dwelling brethern, however, receive much less sun exposure, and so are lighter skinned. Class status is very important here, so noone wants to look like they belong to a class below their own.

Perhaps another reason involves the western concepts of beauty. Thai's are bombarded with western ideals of beauty on TV, billboards and movies. While Thai's are fiercely nationalistic, their is also a part of them that seeks to imitate the west. Perhaps they seek to imitate the lighter skin beauties they see from the west. My uneducated guess is that this dates back to King Rama V and Rama VI embracing western ideas and culture.

The Thai love of western beauty is also evident in their view of half-Thai children. Thai's think that children with one Thai and one falang parent are generally beautiful. Before we were married, Tim and I were told that our children would be beautiful. Now we often hear how beautiful Jacob, Nalin and Aleena look. Thai's sometimes touch them as they walk by. We are not alone. A Thai friend of mine who also married an American, was told by her Thai family how they would have beautiful kids. As she has yet to oblige her family and bear children yet, I cannot speak to the veracity of their claims in her case. :D