One thing striking in Jakarta that I noticed as soon as I stepped foot into a shopping mall, is that like many countries around the world, advertising in this country is for some reason fixated on people with white skin. From the first shopping mall I went into I noticed that almost every patron shopping there was brown-skinned, yet 98% of the advertising - signs, posters, TV screens, etcetera, all showed white people. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule and yes, as reflected above by the 4 long-haired women in yellow, not ALL advertising is exclusively white - brown and black-skinned people are occasionally represented as well. But, because there are so relatively few white people living here and yet so much of the advertising shows white-skinned people, it is very odd to me and makes me curious and sad. Also disheartening and ironic to me, is that skin whitening creams, lotions, and spa whitening treatments are very popular here, while in many parts of the world people are baking in the sun, frequenting tanning salons, or spray-painting a brown glow on their body in order to make their skin look darker.
All of this makes me think to myself: "Why can't we all love the skin we're in?"
Someone riddle me THAT, Batman?
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