This morning I was a bit late to school because I had something to deal with that took me a little longer than expected. Thankfully, Erfan took care of my side of the class and things worked out. To my surprise (and pleasure) the grade 8 students were all on a field trip and so I had the rest of the day off after the first class.
Nothing much of real interest happened today. I am suffering from some side-effect induced difficulties due all the medications I've been on this past month and so I took the rest of the day to just relax at home and nap.
I said in yesterday's post that I had some things I wanted to post about in this last month. I thought I would start off with talking about my observations and learning in the area of beauty and beauty products/practices. This isn't something that I had ever really thought to write about before, every culture has is beautifying practices, but I thought maybe people would be interested.
Firstly, most women (maybe men too but I mostly talk to women about this kind of stuff) want to be whiter. In every drug store, market, 7-11, shopping mall, supermarket etc.. there are stacks of whitening products. I am talking about skin whitening products like creams and powders and it's hard to find a face wash or face cream that doesn't contain some "whitening" agent. Even many deodorants are whitening. I was told by one of my friends that the reason that everyone wants to look white is because it means that you aren't poor and don't have to work out in the field all day. I told her that in North America we all wanted to be tanned because it showed that you didn't have to spend all your time in doors and could actually afford to go on an exotic vacation. Since everyone in Canada wants a tan and many use tanning beds it's been a little odd to see people trying to be as white as possible, but that is how beauty is represented here on t.v. and in the media. There is a commercial where (from what I can tell, since I don't speak Thai) a girl wants to be Snow White in a play but she's a bit dark and plain looking and so she buys this magical whitening cream that makes her look unnaturally pale (for a Thai) and even makes her "prettier" (I think they brushed her hair nicely and she's smiling).... and of course she gets to play Snow White.
The other thing I learned was a fashion fad was braces! I remember hating braces and I couldn't believe that people actually paid money to get fake braces put on. I was told that people who have real braces try to keep them on as long as possible too because it makes you look cute and young (especially with fun and funky colours).
There are of course more fashion and beauty trends here of which I've see many since I live so close to Bangkok, but I need to get to bed.
Today's picture is Phra Thinang Aisawan Thiphya-Art at Bang Pa-In Palace (I took this picture back in April).
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