<p>I agree with overseas- Americans are also obsessed with physical beauty, as are many cultures. Although this is an extreme example, we are bit hypocritical to criticize them for this. In this country, we would have gone with the prettiest face, no matter how lousy her singing! Now inhumane working conditions and totalitarian dictatorship, I’ll take issue with.</p>
<p>“Well if persecution, hunger, and the execution of millions turns you on, the posters were no doubt enjoyable.”</p>
<p>Seems to worked for Wal-Mart and all those wonderful companies enjoying the democratic life of Gangzhou.</p>
<p>Lighter skin was prized by Asians before they even knew about white people. I play tennis with a lot of Asian (not Asian-American) women and they are the biggest proponents of sunblock–they put it on by the gobful. It isn’t because they want to look like Europeans.</p>
<p>Asians do have a tendency to idolize Euroepean features though, regardless of whether they want to have light skin to look white or not.</p>
<p>Well, there’s truth to that. I know many that idolize Scandanavian features here in the US.</p>
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<p>StickShock, haven’t you been around CC long enough to recognize when Mini is being sarcastic?</p>
<p>The world-wide infection I was speaking of has to do with virtually every race and culture’s embrace of the European standard of beauty, which entails far more than just light skin. Does the premium placed on “straight noses” and large wide eyes, free of epicanthal folds also go back thousands of years?</p>
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<p>Is it necessarily sad, Northstarmom? When it comes to judging sexiness, the more exotic, the more genetically distant, the more hot. After all, that’s the whole point of sexual reproduction: diversity in genetic recombination.</p>
<p>It’s not beauty’s relativism or whatever. It’s evolution! (And preventing harmful recessive alleles from surfacing into the phenotype.)</p>
<p>“When it comes to judging sexiness, the more exotic, the more genetically distant, the more hot.”</p>
<p>If that were so, then full figured, dark skinned black women with short, nappy hair and broad features would be considered the essence of “hotness” in America, but that’s far from the case.</p>
<p>Perhaps “exotically mixed features” is a better qualification. There is no denying that people of mixed race are the ones most frequently perceived to be the hottest, anywhere in the world, even in preference to the natives of each region.</p>
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<p>Let’s not look at this from a totally Western/Eurocentric POV (a common mistake).</p>
<p>Pale skin has been prized in Asia for centuries as a symbol of (higher) class, just as it has been among the aristocracy in Europe until the industrial age (“painting” or powdering the face was a common practice among the upper class in both Europe and Asia) – since darker shaded skin indicated that you were a menial laborer or farmer who was constantly exposed to the sun.</p>
<p>However, once the West industrialized and most of the common laborers worked indoors in factories and thus, ended up having pale skin, getting “bronzed” became a symbol of high class (since only the privileged could afford to vacation at resorts – such as St. Tropez or St. Barts).</p>
<p>Most of Asia (including the industrialized parts), however, still adhere to the traditional notion that pale skin = high class. Tho there are a growing no. of young women who do opt to get a tan (there is also a sub-culture of girls in Japan who rebel against the traditional notion of beauty and opt for really, really dark tans, garish make-up and blonde, pink, purple or other garish-colored locks).</p>
<p>Btw, NE Asians and Europeans are both classified as having a “white” skin-tone (tho, one has more of a “peachy” tone). </p>
<p>So wanting to keep a pale complexion (particularly in NE Asia) has nothing to do w/ whites.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget publications/advertisers “lightening” the skin-tone of black celebs (like Beyonce) while at the same time darkening the skin tones of other black celebs (OJ’s mug shot).</p>
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<p>As for “European” features – what exactly are those?</p>
<p>Double eyelids? Around 70% of SE Asians and 30% of NE Asians have double eyelids (which, btw, are different from Caucasian doublelids) and NE Asians tend to have higher-nose bridges than SE Asians.</p>
<p>High cheekbones and fuller lips are more commonly found among NE Asians – does that mean WFs who get cheek and lip implants want to look more “Asian”?</p>
<p>I thought that the girl was cuter whom that the officials wouldn’t let be on camera. She looks like a lot of the Chinese children who have been adopted by Americans. I guess this means that the Chinese let Americans adopt their “ugly” girls.</p>
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<p>It is the same thing. Chinese and other Asians will try mightily to avoid getting any further tinge of color. Just the opposite of Europeans and Americans. When I was in China last summer our tour guide (a young woman in her 20s) instantly deployed a parasol every time we stepped out into the sun. She said it was because a light skin was regarded as a mark of beauty, and she didn’t want to hurt her dating chances by getting tanned.</p>
<p>In any case it’s well documented that nearly all cultures will consider to be beautiful those physical charactertistics that are consistent with wealth and leisure. So as Ellemenope said, in the west a tan skin connotes a person of leisure who can lay by the pool, while white, pasty skin connotes a working stiff who is shut up in an office or factory all day - hence a tan is beautiful and pale skin is not. In Asia it’s just the opposite - a tan connotes a peasant laborer while pale skin connotes someone who is wealthy enough to stay indoors all day. </p>
<p>In the 19th century a tan had the same negative connotations in the west as well. Which is why women then so often wore bonnets and used parasols. No rich woman wanted to spoil her looks by getting a tan and thus being mistaken for a low class milkmaid. Today those same rich women would be baking themselves in sun to get a “beautiful” tan.</p>
<p>It’s the same with weight. In the West being fat is currently commonly associated with poor people who eat bad diets and have poor health and exercise habits, while being thin is regarded as a luxury of the rich who have the time and money to work out every day and eat expensive, healthy food. But it’s just the opposite in some Pacific island cultures - where being fat is sign of being rich and having unlimited food available, but being thin is a sign of poverty. Thus, the notions of which looks beatiful are reversed.</p>
<p>Do you think the “ugly” little girl could care less because in the scheme of things she could have been killed at birth if she was a second daughter?</p>
<p>Being “ugly” may not be so bad after all</p>
<p>I don’t like what was done either, however, it was not a simple matter that the young girl was not cute enough. What happened from what I heard was that the young girl who was chosen, not just for looks but for poise and experience did not have the voice that they wanted when it came down to it. So they found a voice for her. This is done in show biz a number of times. We do it too.</p>
<p>I read a different article - one that said the first choice was a 10 year old who was judged too old. Then they went with the “perfect voice” until someone noticed that she had crooked teeth. So they kept her voice and substituted the “professional” for appearance.</p>
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<p>[China</a> banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony - Times Online](<a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4512250.ece)</p>
<p>(This isn’t the original article I had read, but searching google news for “chinese crooked teeth” brought up plenty, and this is the first one I picked.)</p>
<p>I hadn’t realized that Hollywood enhanced bosoms on film until I read that Kiera Knightley wouldn’t let the studio enhance hers on film.</p>
<p>The girl who lip synched is an experienced show girl even at that young age. The one with the voice is not.</p>
<p>People keep talking about “typical Chinese features” as though this actually exists. China is a huge and physically diverse country.</p>
<p>^^ Thank you.</p>
<p>Not only that, “Chinese ethnicity” is a myth. Over the past 5000 years, vast peoples have been absorbed and significant gene flow has been drawn in from Turkic peoples, far-flung Indo-Europeans, Assamese and Austroasiatics, Austronesians (the ancestors of both Hawaiians and Madagascans), and what have you. (As a testament to this, during the Spring and Autumn period over a 100 states existed in China, along with hundreds of languages.) The Mongols caused even more gene flow. The Chinese of the Zhou Dynasty than the Chinese of the Han Dynasty than the Chinese of now. You can even notice distribution differences between different regions – the Southerners have more ovalish eyes, have rounder faces, etc.</p>