Fishy and foreign fun

Check this out:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124361294&ft=1&f=1001 That is like one way cool fish!

I went to the gym this morning for a bit of a workout. While I bicycle/treadmill or whatever, I wear headphones that allow me to hear the different televisions that are up in the gym. In addition to my usual diet of CNN and BBC news, I watched Chinese music videos, a unique to Western viewers commercial, and a Russian game show. Very interesting stuff.

The music videos from China all contained a Chinese woman with hair dyed brown/blond as the main 'lady' in them. Why the big deal with light colored hair? The women in the videos were naturally pretty, why did they have to so dramatically change their hair color? What kind of a message does that send out to Chinese girls?

The unique commercial was for a face lightening cream for women. Yes, a face cream to make a woman's face skin lighter. A lady of Arab descent (I think anyway) sits down to have her portrait painted by a cute guy of Arab descent (I think anyway). Over the course of the portrait being painted, the lady is using the face cream and the guy keeps having to change to color of her face in the portrait. By the end of the commercial, the portrait's skin (and kinda the lady's) are a totally different color (ie very Caucasian looking), and the cute guy offers the girl a HUGE diamond engagement ring. Again, what kind of a message does this send to women and young girls? And, just think about this, women in the West get skin cancer from baking themselves in the sun to DARKEN their skin. Can't we just be happy in the skin we're in?

And, last but not least, we come to the Russian game show. The audience was very close to the stage. The contestants sat at a huge table that was a giant wheel. The wheel/table was piled high with yummy looking real food. Occasionally, the people at the table would solve some kind of word puzzle with a pretty lady flipping the letters over up on a big board. The gave somebody in the audience a red microwave (just handed it to them - no box or anything - just a microwave). There was a song and dance number up on the stage. Sometimes, the contestants would sing. There was a cute little girl who stood at the table for a while. She was given a large very pretty very fancy doll. Occasionally the host would dance and enjoy the song routines and drink a cup of tea. I so didn't get this show.

Peace.