“Teacher, You are Beautiful”: A Treatise on the Cultural Origins of the Whiteness Beauty Ideal in Thailand

Everyday at school, I hear music to my ears: “Teacher you are beautiful.” Girls are usually the culprits, but boys are not exempt. It’s a constant chorus of praise. I have been called “beautiful” more times in Thailand than in my entire life combined. And it starts to get to your head…you take it personally. “Wow, maybe I really am so beautiful.” Coming from the U.S. where most people suffer from terrible self-esteem and poor body image, coming to Thailand is a confidence boosting experience, because you are exotic. You are beautiful.

But eventually I have started to wonder, do they think I’m beautiful because of what they perceive or because of the societal standards imposed upon them?

One thing I have learned about Thailand – the whiter you are, the more attractive you are considered to be. In India it was the same: the paler your skin tone, the better looking you were. 

When I was at the airport, I had my deodorant taken away. I had to find deodorant in this small village. When I found a Dove brand that was reasonable, I noticed one thing. The label said “Whitening.”

Really? Does my attractiveness depend on how white my under arms appear?

To an American that may seem absurd. But think about it this way: in our culture where Caucasians have been the traditional majority, we desire to be dark. We want tan skin, and spend the summer burning to a crisp and the rest of the year in a tanning bed. My own mother became addicted to tanning beds. She was not content unless she was Oompa Loompa toned 100% of the time. We went to New York, and for a week she couldn’t tan. I did not hear the end of it.

But here the pressure to be white is a lot stronger than the pressure to be tan in the U.S. is. In every store or gas station you see an endless array of products purporting to make you whiter and more beautiful:
 

 

And more disturbing to me, in Bangkok and in magazines, the actors or models portrayed are always very light skinned. In many advertisements and billboards, the models are straight up Caucasian.

 

It’s bad enough that the standards of beauty around the world are increasingly impossible to attain, as everyone is airbrushed and manipulated to “perfection”. How frustrating it must be to be a Thai person, and be told that the standard of beauty is to be Caucasian, something that they will never, ever be?

I read an article stating that the standard of beauty in Thailand is due to class, not race. Dark skinned people tend to work the fields, and those of a higher economic class tend to be lighter, because they stay inside all day.  So it’s not necessarily that Thai people yearn to be Western or Caucasian. Rather, they want to appear wealthy because wealthy is beautiful. Similar to the Renaissance period, curvier women were glorified in sculpture and painting. They were chubby because they could afford to eat! The song remains the same: to be elite is to be pretty.  

Also, the Thai people are incredibly honest about appearance. They will say with a straight face “She is fat,” or “I am ugly.” Here the modicum “Beauty is the eye of the beholder” doesn’t apply – this person is this, that person is that. I come from a place where individuals are rising up against the unrealistic standards of beauty in the media and embracing beauty in all its forms. It’s sad to get a homework assignment where a 14-year old student writes, “I am ugly.” Honesty is a great thing, but the rigid parameters of what is considered pretty and what is not in this country is very depressing.

So – when my students compliment my appearance, do I think that they are brainwashed to worship whiteness? No – deep down I really do think they think I’m beautiful. Not only because my difference is appealing to them, but because I try to be beautiful on the inside, and I hope that it shows. Because I am starting to believe that I am beautiful, and that is making all the difference in how others perceive me.

When I thought I was gross, I carried this perception around. It hung over my head like a heavy cloud, and anyone within a ten-mile radius could see it.  I wasn’t ugly – my thoughts were ugly and made me look that way. But the last few years my world has changed as I’ve started to embrace my so-called flaws and see myself the way I really am. People saw the caterpillar become the butterfly. They saw that I changed the way I carried myself. They noticed that I started becoming more physically active (not to become thinner but to become healthier and happier). That I had a little more spring in my step, and I held my head a little higher.

Because I finally realized that looks don’t matter – if you think you are, you are! People who I thought were hideous got way more action than I could ever hope to attain, because they had confidence. Likewise, very beautiful people that had “fat head” or “ugly head” appeared to be exactly the way they imagined themselves.

So now that I live in Thailand where white reigns supreme, I tell the darker girls they are beautiful. I tell the heavier girls they are beautiful. I just try to dispense as many kind words in places where others don’t anticipate them to go. And it is working, little by little. Students come up to me yell, “I AM BEAUTIFUL.” And it’s music to my ears. If I can empower these girls to love themselves, then I consider my introduction to education a success. The first thing all humans should be taught is to love themselves unconditionally. Think of how much needless suffering and self-harm would be extinguished within a generation. Think of how many people would rise and reclaim their power, and abandon their old life in the shadows.

Society wants us to change, to be something other than what we are. In the U.S. it wants us to be anorexic and tanorexic. In Thailand, it wants us to be wealthy white. We will never fulfill society’s ideals, because we’ll always fall short of unrealistic and extreme expectations that do not have any bearing whatsoever to actuality. But if we are the ones to tell ourselves we are beautiful, then that is the only thing that matters. Our inner beauty is much more important than our outer appearance, but we need to embrace the exterior and the interior as one. It’s a holistic approach – one I’m still working on. But it’s getter easier and I agree with my students: I am beautiful.