Series: Cultural Stereotype Buster: Western people are more hygienic - NOT!

Western people are so much more hygienic. They don't eat with their hands, don't spit on the floor, have superclean flats and streets, don't blow their nose with their hands, you know what I'm talking about... When I encountered other cultures more intensely this world view that I had absorbed from my environment was suddenly challenged.
The first time was with an Italian friend of mine on my stay abroad in Ireland. A group of some of my international student friends was discussing hygiene and my Italian friend complained that there wasn't a bidet in any bathroom in Ireland. He asked how you are supposed to clean yourself after the toilet without a bidet. My Dutch friend and I told him that that was what the paper was for. He looked at us in disgust and said: "But that's not enough to clean yourself!"
You haven't seen a bidet yet? Neither had I when I went to Italy for the first time as a teen. This is what I discovered:

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As you can see, it's a very low washbasin. My first thought was that it looked like a men's toilet. My parents were so kind as to explain... Still, being told how to use it and being able to use it properly are two different things.  If you ever come in need of using one, here's a description of how to handle the situation (believe me, a bidet is not self-explanatory, really).
In India I have seen heaps of trash on the street. People spit on the ground in public and had no (!) toilet paper. On the other hand, Indians keep the left hand off the food at all times. One hand is the one for the bathroom and the other for the food. I guess many Indians don't mind if us Europeans struggle to eat with only one hand and use both, but they'd never do it themselves. And if you've ever tried to rip some bread off a loaf with one hand you know a second hand comes in handy. If you're saying this is just a small exception to an otherwise less hygienic people let me tell you you are wrong. How do you drink straight from a bottle? Well, you surely put the bottle to your lips and - Not the Indians! They pour the water in their mouth without touching the bottle with their lips. They use their right hand to hold the bottle to keep it above the mouth and then pour the water. Unfortunately I don't think there is a video online showing how it is done. Drinking like that requires quite some practice. Lucky for me it is warm in India and it wasn't so bad that I spilled water all over my clothes...
Eating with only one hand and not drinking straight from the bottle are both measures that reduce the risk of infection by bacteria in the warm and humid Indian climate.
Other Asian countries also have hygiene habits that are stricter than Europe's. Whenever I see pictures of streets in Japan and Singapore I am amazed by the cleanliness of the streets. Not one piece of paper in any of the images. They must either be really disciplined photoshoppers or they just have much cleaner streets than us Europeans. I know the punishment for littering is quite high in Singapore and I'm not sure about Japan, but rules like that wouldn't work that well here.
How about you? Did you visit a country that had much stricter hygiene habits than your home country? How did you feel? Did you follow or stick to your own system?

The best skin color in the world - tanning, whitening, or what?

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.

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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.

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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.

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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 ?

Very British

Playing with stereotypes is often very funny. Especially when it is done by stereotyped people themselves. When in London for the first time I found this awesome ad on the wall of the underground. Harrods really did a great job with this one.