Grace was given better opportunities than her brother. She was raised by her paternal family, who were wealthy and able to support her, not only send her to study in good quality institutions, but also by being surrounded by educated people. Whereas her brother was raised by her mum who was less educated and busy trying to survive. Since this was the case, would it be strange that Grace became more highly educated than her brother? As the story from chapter 1 showed, Grace herself struggled once she didn't received as good an education too.
Killed by diet pills and injections for a lighter skin tone
After Grace graduated, Grace decided to stay in England further as she could feel freedom from the pressure of her Thai family and culture such as:
Firstly, Grace didn't have to lose weight and take diet pills (based on speed) anymore because westerners didn't want females to be as skinny as the Thai valued and cultivated (there is a lot of pressure in the West but it is doubled in Thailand). Even though Grace wasn't fat, when she was in Thailand Grace had to take diet pills, so she could get stick thin like the Thai preferred. Grace used to take diet pills so much that she became blurred and could no longer concentrate on her studies. That didn't happen to Grace alone, but her friends as well. Grace's friends tried so much to be thin by not just taking diet pills but also taking pure speed. Some of her friends ended up being mad, some were put in jail and some let go of their lives. Grace was also aware that westerners valued thinness too, but not stick thin. Besides, Grace learnt that westerners had varieties of beauty and thats why there were leading actors who large, slim, dark and light.
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| An example of a skinny Thai leading actress Photo: soccersuck.com |
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| An example of international leading actresses with some curves (but Grace's husby says they are thin by international standards!) Photo: maximonline.com |
Having mentioned dark and light, this was the second reason that Grace felt free when she lived in the UK. She had to run away from the sun all the time in Thailand and never got to enjoy herself when she went to the beaches and/or got to swim in the sea as much, as whilst she was a beach lover, she didn't want to get a dark tan. Although she's mixed with a bit of Chinese ancestry, she could easily get light or dark depending on exposure to the sun. Once Grace came to England she started to change the way she thought, and to have a broader mind like civilised people in developed countries, she started realising the prejudice that existed and felt sorry for the darker skinned people who were born in Thailand. In Thailand people were classified and separated hierarchically too much, partly just by skin colour. This misguided attitude caused people to hate each other, as the dark ones tended to be made fun of and classed lower than the light, despite all of us just being human and having equal rights as a human beings. In Thailand, kids who were born with dark skin tended to have an inferiority complex. Grace had a cousin who was dark and they were compared by adults, even Grace's grandfather, who liked to call Grace white one and her cousin black one. Grace's cousin then felt it was her weak point and Grace could feel that it created jealousy and resentment between them. This inferiority complex resulted from the erroneous values of the Thais and their culture. Grace felt it wasn't one's fault if there were born fat, short, dark, etc. but it was the Thai values that bred a culture that made a normal person became an abnormal one and that was the reason and the root unequal opportunities that remained in society. In the end, it just created argument and hatred. These pressures in Thailand had killed a number of people as Grace and everyone else had often seen in the news, some died because of injections that they believed would make them whiter and some died taking diet pills.
In international movies, Grace could see actors with various types of beauty. As in example below, on the left hand side everyone knows him as he is Mr Barack Obama; the first black president of the US. And on the right is Mr Will Smith who had been in many films as a leading actor. Both of them are dark skinned but they were handsome and respectable, so why do the Thais still have such narrow minds and still classify people according to their skin colour.
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| Barrack Obama//Will Smith Photo: wildsound-filmmaking-feedback-events.com |
Grace also noticed that prejudice extended to Thai newsagents, the models on all the magazines tended to have very light skin only and she was no longer surprised why "whitening lotion" sold fantastically well in Thailand. Grace also wasn't surprised to hear from her cousin (who grew up being called dark one by her Grandfather) saying that she liked living in Australia as she felt that she was beautiful, this despite the fact she was an heiress who could have lived comfortably on her funds until the end of her days back home in Thailand rather than expensive Australia.
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| Examples of whitening lotions sold in Thailand |
Bias in the recruitment and selection process in the Thai job market
Grace also noticed that in England, in the job advertisements, she never saw any companies specify age, gender, marital status, education levels and require the applicants to attach their photos. That was because there were explicit regulations that everyone had the same equal rights. There was once Grace was watching a TV program with her husband and saw a Thai lady boy and Grace called her "he" and she heard the TV presenter called her "she" and so she laughed because she thought the TV team didn't know that Thai lady boy was a man, however then Grace's husband explained that they probably knew but it was rude, and possibly illegal in a TV programme, not to call the person what they wanted to be called.
In terms of ages as well, it didn't matter young or old everyone were equal. That was the reason why we could see many young westerners, as young as 19 or even younger, start their own businesses, like the owner of Facebook who became successful and the youngest self-made billionaire. For westerners, they looked at the ability, not the age. Not like in Thailand where the cultural values mean the young are brought up to revere adults, but their elders tended to take advantage of this by using it to suppress the youngsters. The reason why some workplaces did not prosper as they should was because youngsters were not allowed to give full opinions, because they were afraid of offending the senior staffs. However recently, Grace has found that the Thai new generations have changed and can think they are better and cleverer than their seniors and this has led them to become arrogant and disrespectful. Grace felt that no matter young or old, clever or not we still should respect each other as human beings as we call ourselves civilised and the most advanced animal.
With regards to the marital status requirement of job adverts, this was considered clearly inappropriate in Grace's opinion. Even Grace never understood why many companies in Thailand only accepted single female staff. She used to talk to her mum and have a laugh with one another about it, as we assumed that those companies bosses were probably looking for a wife rather than a worker, a similar reason for requiring a photo. Grace told her British husband and he just laughed and said "perhaps those companies wanted see what skin color the candidates were and even worse whether the candidates were fat, short, dark, flat nose, big jaw - all characteristics that Thais discriminated against. Listening to all this, Grace could feel how unfair her culture was.
Job advertisements below are typical examples that Grace could see in Thailand, they specified age, gender and education even for typical clerk roles that opposed to England where there wouldn't be specify those requirements even for education in such high level positions.
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| Data Entry role ad in Thailand Source: jobsDB.com |
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| Administrator ad in Thailand Source: jobsDB.com |
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| Director ad in England Source: reed.co.uk |
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| Vice President ad in England Source: totaljobs.com |
Readers can search to see more differences from the below link which is to one of the most popular job websites in the UK, so you can check and prove by yourself that most ads are not specified age, gender, marital status, education level and/or ask for an attached photo.
The readers can look for job ads that are generally posted in Thailand that specify age, gender, marital status, education level and/or ask for an attached photos from the link below:
By specifying education on the job ads, there are also so many impacts that effect people in many different ways, as noted in the next chapter!
Next - Chapter 3: Intl' student life in the UK
Next - Chapter 3: Intl' student life in the UK
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