Origin of white skin fetish in India and South Korea?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Does anyone know where this whackjob racist fetish to make ones' skin whiter come from in each of these countries? I mean, South Korea I can understand (Koreans with tanned skin are apparently racially abused by Koreans with lighter skin for being 'historically working-class'), but the Indian media's obsession with this crap is so utterly out of field that I do not understand where it extends from.

I mean holy shit - I was looking through a medical news website - not a cosmetics advertisement, but an Indian website based around the latest news in medicinal science - where doctors would prescribe skin bleaching cream to patients for 'health'. Fucking nuts! Plus, wouldn't lighter skin in the Indian climate be - however small it is - detrimental to health? What with the extra UV radiation and whatnot? Crackpots galore!.

[o well this is ok I guess]

I don't recall where I read it, but from what I recall it was a marker of class status. Upper class women spent less time outdoors than lower class women, who had to work, often outdoors. Dunno if it's the same for India, but it's a likely explanation.
And, furthermore, it's not a totally south korean phenomenon. I've been to the Philippines and Singapore, and drug stores are full of skin whitening products.

[Stalinist Speaker]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18268914

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/arti-patel/indian-skin-lightening_b_3763946.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130727174002AAXfbnR

this could maybe be interesting.
this whole thing is just to make yourself look like a 1st world'ist i would say.

[Alan OldStudent]

Ads like that were quite popular in the United States for African-Americans back in the 1950s. I remember one black friend of my father's being quite upset about seeing ads for "skin brightner" in Jet Magazine back about 1956 or so.

He wrote a letter back to the editor that he read to us. It was quite funny. The sentence that sticks in my memory after all these years was "I'd rather be a dark man with a bright future than a bright man with a dark past."

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living--Socrates

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The sun burns peasants just as much in India as it does in Korea.

Also there historically was a migration of Aryans into a darker-skinned areas and the Aryan culture dominated, so it may be some kind of cultural artifact with long forgotten roots 4,000 years ago. The darkness of skin was described as one of the defining characteristics of outcastes for instance.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

The sun burns peasants just as much in India as it does in Korea.

Also there historically was a migration of Aryans into a darker-skinned areas and the Aryan culture dominated, so it may be some kind of cultural artifact with long forgotten roots 4,000 years ago. The darkness of skin was described as one of the defining characteristics of outcastes for instance.

By outcastes do you refer to the caste system? Because according to genetic mapping, apparently the system was in place in India before the advent of Indo-European peoples into the region (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0050269) (plus, I thought most of the Aryans were quite dark-skinned? Probably not as dark-skinned as other people in India but not super light skinned).

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I'm interested in the class based idea. In the west I believe tans for white people were considered unattractive due to it being associated with outdoor labor, until a particular movie star accidentally got one while on vacation and it became a fashion trend.

[Oulian]

Pale skin is an ideal of beauty in all Asia and I doubt it is linked to the desire to be occidental.
It's an imperialist misconception in my opinion. Some white people like to think that they are at the center of universe and that everybody wants to look like them when in fact this criteria exists for centuries now. In many places around the world, pale skin is still considered to be beautiful.
Being tanned became a trend after Coco Chanel came back from a trip at the beach in 1920. ;)
It is strongly associated to an idea of class, mostly for girls. Boys can have a darker skin whereas if a girl has one ... it's definitely not good for her. A girl with a pale skin will be called "princess" and almost automatically considered as beautiful. It is associated with an idea of nobless, purity, and so on.
South Koreans are paler than white people by the way.
Another physical feature considered as beautiful in Asia is the double eyelid, most Asians have a mono eyelid and white people claim girls get this surgery to look more Caucasian but I highly doubt it. I know many women who did it and their only wish was just to be "prettier", having a double eyelid is supposed to make appear your eyes more open.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Another physical feature considered as beautiful in Asia is the double eyelid, most Asians have a mono eyelid and white people claim girls get this surgery to look more Caucasian but I highly doubt it. I know many women who did it and their only wish was just to be "prettier", having a double eyelid is supposed to make appear your eyes more open.

This is considered a desirable trait because it is perceived as making you look more 'attentive' and 'energetic'. It might even affect chances of employment... tragically.

[adipocere]

I see it as power relations and marketing. Women in the US weren't induced into smoking because it was attractive..it was a PR campaign. It showed wealthy attractive women with cigarettes and associated with liberation. Extend it to skin bleaching. Create a market by getting some brainless celebrity to advertise a useless vanity product, attach it so social prestige and voila...certiany it's not that simple but female beauty and power have a long history. Whites celebrate themselves endlessly and flaunt their wealth and power with media, money and violence. Of course people on the receiving end of that shit are going to begin to internalize it.

[Bala Perdida]

Interesting responses. I know form my experience in Mexico that people, especially the Mexican bourgeoisie, want to associate themselves with as much American culture as they can. I've seen them trying to speak English, listening to American music without understanding it, trying to keep with American trends, it's crazy. They also have the white skinned fetish, but I think that does have it's roots in the conquest. They insult dark skinned people by calling then indians aggressively, and they even think they're genetically inferior. My mom even tries to brag about us having a high concentration of Spanish blood, my mom likes to think she's European, and when I mention dark skinned family she gets mad. I'm pretty light skinned myself and I'm certainly seen better there because of it. Although I get as much action there as I do here, which is none. Overrall, this lead me to my intense passion for Latino culture. I mean, although ethnic race is just an economic divider and ultimately doesn't exist, culture is regional and will probably always exist.

[Oulian]

Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good.
The Power Of Money, Marx

Basically, pale skin = wealthy person = attractive person
Nowadays in western countries, having a tan is attractive because it means you can afford to spend your holidays in a sunny place, a nice beach or skiing (which is an expensive sport).