Last night at the gym, the ladies spent some time admiring my "beautiful white legs" (exposed in their shorts after a hot day). Now that is something that would NEVER happen in Australia. It is not that I have particularly wonderful legs (short and stocky, more like it), but that they were admiring my skin colour. It seems that even though they've seen my white face and arms many times, it surprised them that my legs were the same colour-less shade. I'm mentioned before that Japanese (indeed all Asians, I think) admire white skin and many women wear long sleeves and carry sun umbrellas to keep their skin pale. Probably they have more 'skin whitening' products than sunscreen products on the pharmacy shelf and certainly, no tanning products!
They were particularly curious because they'd figured out that Australia has high UV levels and wondered how I could be so white...again I didn't have the technical language to say that it is just my skin. I did tell them though, that if I spend much time in the sun, I don't turn brown, I turn red!
From skin colour they quickly progressed to checking out the hair on my arms - "Yes, I do have some." The trainer only just restrained herself from checking out my bare legs for hair too (thankfully I'd shaved the night before).
All this is fairly forward from reserved Japanese. But it might be something to add to my "I'll miss about Japan" - people admiring my white skin!
21 May, 2009
Beautiful, white legs
Last night at the gym, the ladies spent some time admiring my "beautiful white legs" (exposed in their shorts after a hot day). Now that is something that would NEVER happen in Australia. It is not that I have particularly wonderful legs (short and stocky, more like it), but that they were admiring my skin colour. It seems that even though they've seen my white face and arms many times, it surprised them that my legs were the same colour-less shade. I'm mentioned before that Japanese (indeed all Asians, I think) admire white skin and many women wear long sleeves and carry sun umbrellas to keep their skin pale. Probably they have more 'skin whitening' products than sunscreen products on the pharmacy shelf and certainly, no tanning products!
They were particularly curious because they'd figured out that Australia has high UV levels and wondered how I could be so white...again I didn't have the technical language to say that it is just my skin. I did tell them though, that if I spend much time in the sun, I don't turn brown, I turn red!
From skin colour they quickly progressed to checking out the hair on my arms - "Yes, I do have some." The trainer only just restrained herself from checking out my bare legs for hair too (thankfully I'd shaved the night before).
All this is fairly forward from reserved Japanese. But it might be something to add to my "I'll miss about Japan" - people admiring my white skin!
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3 comments:
The first time this happened to me - in '95 - I was amazed, for no one had ever admired my pale white legs. :-)
Also, I replied to your question in a comment below it on my blog.
A specialist told me recently that I'm not getting enough sun. The slip, slop, slap message is working too well and some Queenslanders are actually vitamin D deficient. I wonder how it is in Japan?
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