Sep 23
ElsjeCulture, Society article, Asia, skin whitening, women
© Yinyu Mao - Creative Commons 2.0
This is a newspaper article I wrote a while back, but never got around to finding a publisher for. What better place for it than my second ever blog post:
She’s fresh out of university, talented, and longs to be a journalist. Yet she’s getting nowhere: “Just before my fourth interview, I realised that the obstacle to obtaining my dream job was my skin”. Ten seconds into this television advertisement, many viewers might be able to identify with the plight of this young woman trying to overcome discrimination in the workplace. One month later, however, she’s reporting live from a tent in the Egyptian desert and surrounded by admirers. (See the video here).
Has she campaigned to draw attention to unfair recruitment procedures, or taken her employers to a labour tribunal? Her solution is simpler: she has used a product by Indian cosmetics brand Fair and Lovely to lighten her skin and achieve “total fairness”.
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Sep 20
ElsjeCulture, Modernisation, Society, Travel about me, introduction, light traveller, steampunk
Hello world. I see so much that is chaotic, beautiful and intricate as I drift above you, observing the goings-on below. Not that I feel I am ‘above’ you, not in that way. But I feel like a light traveller, never resting in any one place for long, going where the breeze takes me.
I didn’t always travel this way. When I was growing up as the daughter of a diplomat, I used to get very attached to the various places we were posted. I remember, as a nine-year old, standing in our backyard and singing a teary goodbye to the grey British skies I was being forced to leave behind. My father had heard we had a week to leave the country before the government kicked us out, and the next day at the school I’d just begun to feel comfortable in was going to be my last. But that’s another story for another post…
Since that day, I have lived in eight countries and had the chance to travel to many, many more. I rarely stay in one place for longer than a year or two. I’m not the only one to do this—us global nomads are a rapidly-growing species. Nor is it always easy, as I long, at times, to settle somewhere and put down roots. But I do feel I’ve had the chance to see a little of this world and to do some interesting things in it, so I’d like to use this space to explore some of it.
This isn’t really a travel blog, though. More
