[mweatherill]

I had initially assumed that whitening creams were used to create a caucasian look - an idea which I found quite repulsive. When a friend explained that it was to mimic the appearance of the upperclass, whose skin colour contrasted with a labourer's, it began to make sense. When thought of as a status enhancer, it doesn't seem that disimilar to tanning..

[rodion_89]

It's funny, a friend of mine asked me why "all Japanese people want to look white" as I am from japan (I don't look even a little bit white, let alone Japanese). The fact is that paleness has been associated with beauty there since before they knew that Caucasians even existed. So I don't particularly have an answer, but it's clear that it's not that they want to be white because Caucasians are white.

[mahmud]

+1 for not looking Japanese.

A former hostel-mate of mine was Japanese and we would hangout with the Japanese expats in Shanghai. 100% of the time, Japanese people would speak English to him. I forgot where exactly in Japan he is from, but he said everyone in his home town looked like him, but Japanese people elsewhere would assume he is something else; 6.4 tall, full beard, and looked a lot like Tarkan, the Turkish singer:

http://www.frogview.com/uploadimages101/476366f66b4d62.07061...

A year later when I went to Japan I found out how unusual looking he was.

[rubashov]

Lighter skin is universally more feminine. In any ethnicity the women are lighter skinned and usually have lighter hair. Observing women using skin whitening products and dying their hair does not necessarily lead to some class/race social analysis. It can be fundamentally the same thing as using lipstick to emphasize the natural female tendency of darker and fuller lips.