Cultivating Japanese Whiteness

Abstract

This article examines the strong preference for light complexions observed among Japanese women. Since the late 1980s, consumption of ‘whitening’ cosmetics has remained at consistently high levels, and a ‘white’ complexion has been considered trendy and desirable in contemporary Japan. This social phenomenon should not be understood simply either as a reflection of admiration for the West, or as an expression of traditional values of female beauty in Japan. Rather, the skin tones of Japanese people are recognized and expressed as a dichotomy of ‘white’ and ‘black’, which is linked to a further dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Through this link, the white skin becomes a symbolic physical characteristic for identifying the Japanese people. Although the white skin can be interpreted in many different ways, both good and bad, in everyday life, other meanings are often subjugated to the white skin as a symbol of Japaneseness. This article argues that the meaning of a symbol is not simply produced or reproduced but represented and authorized through the body decoration in public.