You don't want to think too much about the lotus-bud feet. In China, girls feet were broken and the toes curved underneath for foot-binding. Those are your "lotus buds"—even during sex, the women's feet stayed covered—in part because the necrotic flesh made them smell. Being able to have your daughter's foot bound…

Yeah, jumping in here as an Asian-American who has discussed this extensively with native Korean friends, this is NOT about looking "white" as in "European." The beauty standard for many in East Asian countries is pale, pale skin. One can argue that western beauty standards have permeated over there in other ways, but…

And to balance it out, the Chevy Nova didn't sell well in Latin America.

Myopia and ethnocentrism - "I mean, duh, everyone wants to be a western white woman." Uhhh... No. Reminds me of pre-Durkheimian anthropology when they proposed that culture was linear from "primitive" African cultures to "advanced" Western ones. These are the same people who will claim "Asian cultures" are so good at…

Except the model still looks very much Asian. I think for this particular product, they're talking about skin colour, not ethnicity. And the light skin thing is very, very old, as noted by other posters. That said, I can't wear any Korean foundations, tinted moisturizers, CC Creams, etc... that are sold in North…

Yes. Pretty much all Asian BB/CC creams are marketed as whitening because of that beauty standard.

This is correct and a version of this story comes along on Jezebel every 6 months or so. So we have to put up with misleading headline again, only to be educated by the commenters that making skin lighter has been around for a very long time.

Amen. The people who make these claims are really revealing more about their own worldview than accomplishing anything else by making this tiring argument again and again.

yeah. I use Korean brands. The whitening factor evens out my skin tone. Korean women may get cosmetic surgery that can be associated with being Caucasian, but they absolutely abhor Western makeup. Being pale is also associated with being an indoor girl, which means CASHMONS.

I came in here just to say this. Claiming that this has anything to do with White people is just another form of believing in white racial superiority IMO.

Yes, the assumption that all other cultures must be trying to emulate Caucasians is frequently made by Jezebel writers, and it is tiring. Once, when Barbara Walters suggested on the view that African American women were trying to look more white with hair weaves, Dodai decried it as a stupid notion, but yet these…

This doesn't advertise a change in perceived ethnicity. That was my point. White is NOT synonymous with caucasian.

I wrote out a similar reply but people don't enjoy hearing reason apparently. They've idolized porcelain skin for over a thousand years. They didn't have regular contact with Westerners until the 1800's. Their perceptions of beauty were developed and strongly rooted before we ever had a chance to influence them.

NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. Koreans have a long history of favoring white pearly skin before wide exposure to Westerners. Historically, like in the Western world, it was tied to CLASS. If you were a rich noblewoman/gentleman's daughter (양반 딸), the ideal was pearly white skin. It set them apart from the peasants. Later in…

Disagree. Northern Asian beauty standards have been written about in classic literature long before the West had much influence (they were called derogatory things like "smells like butter" and were considered hairy and disgusting barbarians by Chinese dynasty courts). The standard is for petite, young-looking women…

Oh please. Koreans idolized white skin way before they were colonized and way before they had any other culture to compare themselves to.

Yeah, I don't think that they mean "white" in the American sense either.

This ad is also in Flushing, targeting most likely Korean and/or Korean-American customers. Is there any indication that this is not the ad copy used in South Korea also? English-language ads are everywhere. Still awkward in its word choice though.

Okay, I don't know about racism, but Asians of all sorts do horrible, shitty things to themselves in order to be "fair"-er. It's a fucking problem whether you're aware of it or not.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Other than the word "white," the ad doesn't have any other verbal or visual references to Caucasian ethnicity. Isn't it kind of ethnocentric to immediately assume that the ad is about becoming Caucasian?