I used to looove mango as a child. The sweet-sour orange fruitiness with a slight flavor of cedars, could there be any better fruit?! When my mom brought them home on summer days I didn't know where they came from. Today I do and as a consequence I don't buy them anymore.
I was skyping with one of my friends from one of the biggest mango-growing countries, India, just the other day. She is a very sweet girl from Pune. Two years ago when I visited her and her husband they told me about the mango season. The fresh Indian mango is nothing like the unripe green desaster we get in the supermarkets here. They were talking about the quality of their mango with dreamy eyes, in short, they absolutely made my mouth water.
But then they told me that the best mangoes never reach the Indian people. They are shipped to the international markets right away.
Now, two years later, things have gotten worse. It is mango season right now and my friend told me they've had a single mango and only because someone has given it to them. The price of mango is so high that she simply can't afford anymore - and she belongs to the Indian middle class. The wikipedia entry listing uses of mango in Indian and Pakistani cuisine stretches three paragraphs. How will that work when no one can afford them anymore?
I told her that I don't buy mango in Germany, though I love them, as they are either unripe or brought by plane, which is environmentally insane. I didn't dare telling her how many mangoes I see rotting in our supermarkets until noone wants them anymore...
That's a downside of globalization.
What do you think? Can we make a change buy responsible shopping or are we helping the markets of the country of origin by buying tropic fruit? Which fruit are "exotic" in your country? Do you buy it?
In Germany and many western countries a healthy tan (not the overdone "coin-mallorca" one) is regarded as quite attractive. I guess the reason is that it means you have the money to go on holiday to a nice and sunny destination. Historically, being tanned was often not regarded attractive because it signified that you belonged to a lower class. Only farmers and street merchants had to work outside where their skin would get darker from the sun. To appear more "noble", people even practised skin whitening by applying (often lead-based) powders.
Today, on the other hand, there is a whole tanning industry at work providing us with a more or less fake tan. Tanning spray, self-tanning lotion, showers, tanning beds... I know there are also people out there who tan for health reasons and I'm not talking about that.
The text under "self tan" says "wonderfully even tan without sun".
When I was in India, the situation was absurdly reversed. Darker people were regarded much less attractive. My pretty bland skin color over here was suddenly regarded very nice. This shows also when you look at posters of Bollywood stars: with some you can hardly tell they are not white.
There is no difference for Indian men or women. I was quite surprised when I heard that Sharukh Khan was promoting skin whitening cream for guys. The mechanism is simple but effective: dark = unpopular and stupid, fair = popular and smart. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad, have a look:
So, cappucino/very light brown is the answer for everybody? Nope, that'd be too easy. Here's an ad for snow white. Not as funny, but interesting:
It might have been a coincidence but on my tour through the north of India my driver was of a very dark shade, his sister with a university degree as a teacher on the other hand was a lot lighter. My driver and I had trouble communicating as he barely spoke English and I almost no Hindi. I understood, however, that he repeatedly talked apologetically about his own dark complexion and told me about his pretty sister.
I wonder how much of that is coming naturally as a desire for what is rare or has a certain luxury connotation (being able to afford holidays or belonging to the ruling class) and how much is industry, getting us to feel bad so we buy stuff we wouldn't otherwise.
After all this I enjoyed hearing about the operation beautiful campaign where you leave affirmative messages in public. I found one of the handwritten "you are beautiful" notes once and it really made my day. Have a try; I will start taking some post-it notes with me from now on, so I can add a touch of feel-good here and there (as a teacher having post-its is always handy anyway).
I also like this charity project that helps young black girls explore beauty through photography. I think there needs to be a bigger effort to counteract the influence of advertising.
My reader "Onelovelygurl" was so kind as to remind me of the Dove campaign to show more natural women in advertising. Of course, these were also digitally manipulated, but it is a step in the right direction.
One of our most famous women magazines, BRIGITTE, now only uses "real people" as models. Many of them are still almost as thin as models, but it looks a bit more healthy on the whole. Some people complained that no one wanted to see "ugly" people showing off fashion (they were still really pretty and had makeup and all, they were just not skinny size). What do you think?
Do you know about any campaigns that make a change by supporting inner beauty ?
Intercultural aspects in any form are my passion. I write about travelling, intercultural communication, my work at a multiethnic school and the small everyday things. If you'd like to share any intercultural experience you had, I'd be happy to receive your message.
