White Power?

No, now before you jump to any conclusions to what the title of this entry suggests I want to say that this is not an article concerning white supremacy or anything of negative relations of race. This is an entry about the everyday facets of Hong Kong life that find their routes deep in the history of this fought over land. Again it has nothing to do with racist views on skin color. It is a look at a piece of life that finds its origins in the history of China.

Now that I have cleared up this title I can movie onto what is really important, the story. When I arrived in Hong Kong, it was hot, sticky and humid. As I wandered the streets exploring the city I found that many people, carried umbrellas with them at all times, it didn't have to be raining or cloudy, people had them when it was hot and sunny. Day after day went by and day after day I would see people put up their umbrella when they entered the sunlight and take it down when they got to the shade, they would repeat the process over and over as they moved down the street, up, down, up, down... Seeing this I just assumed that people here preferred portable shade and never had I given it much thought after that.
Days turned into weeks and soon the umbrellas were nothing more than another obstacle in the daily commute of life. You went under them or around them when people moved too slowly and carried on about your day. In Taipei as it happened, I found myself talking with the rather blitzed Australian I had mentioned earlier in this blog and the topic of the "all purpose" umbrella came up. Now it had been almost two months since the purpose of the umbrella had entered my mind but the Aussie brought new life to the use of this object. Now, please don't think of this man, no matter how drunk he may have been, as an idiot. I know I might have shed a bad light on him earlier but he does do research at University in Singapore and has a pretty good idea about what he is talking about. He told us that the reason the umbrella was used so frequently was to keep the skin white. This tradition we were told was because back when Hong Kong had a large portion of laborers in the field the people who worked in the offices and stores wanted to differentiate themselves from the lower class of field workers. Since the laborers spent the day under the sun their skin became darker and more tan, in an effort not to be associated with this lower class the upper tiers of society did anything possible to stay as pale and white as possible, even using an umbrella at all times of the day. Hong Kong was and still is a city divided by class and those in the upper echelons want do not want to be confused with anyone considered low enough to do manual labor. In modern Hong Kong there is little to no fields to work and most work is done indoors making it almost impossible to distinguish class from skin color. This being the case one would think then that the umbrella would be an obsolete tool since everyone is essentially the same hue. It seems however though that while many people don't even know why they use the umbrella it is something that is so ingrained in the culture that people don't even know how it started, at least most don't. Upon hearing this explanation I was disappointed in myself for not taking the time to come to this conclusion on my own, I think with some real thought I would have figured out the umbrella riddle. This is a culture that was raised on "white is good" and so was ours at one time, it probably stills is to a great extent. I the U.S. however though there has been a slowly growing to what beauty is, no longer is just white. Tan, the idea that scared so many Hong Kongers is something in the U.S. that is now associated with beauty. Will Hong Kong soon follow?

A side note: this idea of white is good might not just be confined to Hong Kong; during my time in Vietnam I saw a few billboards for skin whitening cream. Now this is a country with a great deal of workers in the field and it is probably a good look at how Hong Kong was a hundred years ago.

Hope this article was satisfying, feel free to ask any questions you might have, I'd be glad to answer them.