AZN GIRL WANNA BE LIKE WHITE GIRL: AW

The quest for a whiter shade of pale

By Jia-Rui Chong Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times Wed Jul 27, 9:40 AM ET

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Not for Margaret Qiu. She and thousands of other Asian-American women are going to great lengths to avoid the sun--fighting to preserve or enhance their pale complexions with expensive creams, masks, gloves, professional face scrubs and medical procedures.

For them, a porcelain-like white face is the feminine ideal, reflecting a long-held belief that pale skin represents a comfortable life. They also believe it can hide physical imperfections.

"There's a saying, `If you have white skin, you can cover 1,000 uglinesses,'" said Qiu, 36, a Chinese immigrant who lives in Alhambra.

Qiu goes through a regimen of skin-whitening products twice a day. She is one of many customers who have turned Asian whitening creams and lotions into a multimillion-dollar industry in the United States.

Take a daylight drive through Asian immigrant enclaves like Monterey Park and Irvine, and you'll see women trying to shield themselves with umbrellas even to go from a parking lot into a supermarket. While driving, many wear special "UV gloves"--resembling the long gloves worn with ball gowns--to protect their forearms, and don wraparound visors.

Beauticians do a brisk business with $65 whitening therapies. Women dab on fruit acid, which is supposed to remove old skin cells that dull the skin, and glop on masks with pearl powder or other ingredients that they believe lighten the skin.

For about $1,000, some doctors will use an electrical field to deliver vitamins, moisturizers and bleaching agents.

Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in the United States only in the past four years. Whitening products now rack up $10 million in sales a year, according to the market research firm Euromonitor.

But their popularity has sparked a debate among Asian-Americans about the politics of whitening. Qui and others say the quest for white skin is an Asian tradition. But others--younger, U.S.-born Asians--question whether the obsession with an ivory complexion has more to do with blending into white American culture, or even a subtle prejudice against those with darker skin.

Qiu, a native of Xi'an, China, thinks there is nothing politically incorrect about using products that whiten the skin.

Qiu said she was surprised when she first arrived in the U.S. and saw so many young women flaunting their tans.

She came to realize that Eastern and Western ideas of beauty were different. Here, she said, "When you see darker, you think they are very rich. They have a boat. They have enough time to go to the beach."

It's OK for American women to be darker, said her husband, Lei Sun, 36, a sushi chef. "It's part of the sports thing."

For Qiu and others, it's important to find just the right shade of white. Too white, Qiu said, and you look sickly.

"Then they look like Michael Jackson," she said.

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