NOTE: In retrospect, I regret not documenting the numerous posters and phone wallpapers of white babies I encountered in Southeast Asia, but at the time I never imagined I’d want to speak on the subject. The images below should suffice.

Anyone familiar with the Asian obsession with “whiteness” and skin lightening is probably also familiar with the ever-presence of fair-skinned women and men in advertisements, television, and all forms of media, from major cities to tiny towns throughout Southeast Asia. As a mixed-race person, I never truly fit into one category, but after baking under the Southeast Asian sun, all the friendly foreign faces made it clear that I officially had dark skin — black skin — an opinion held by few in the West. At home, I’m always the “half-breed,” “high-yellow,” “lightskinned black girl.”

Cambodia was my homebase during my adventures through Southeast Asia. I was often confused for Khmer (a Cambodian person), and the first Khmer words I learned all revolved around skin tone and beauty. Mao was dark; saat was beautiful — while the former was typically “better” than the latter, they weren’t always mutually exclusive.

On my daily outings, I was told “Ah, so beautiful, but so black, so dark.”

I’d go to the market looking for antiseptics and hydrogen peroxide, and would be led to the skin-bleaching isle instead. Eventually, my boyfriend’s sister asked me to accompany her to the marketplace so she could find some of the imported Thai whitening creams to “clean” my skin. I assured her I showered daily. She replied, “Still not clean.”

I’d return from several weeks backpacking outside the country and the local market ladies and guesthouse receptionists were always first to comment on how much darker my skin had become. I couldn’t win, so I gave up fighting, and decided to bake my (light) black ass in the sun, every, single day for the entirety of my time in the region. I was intent on challenging what I believed to be a perversion of beauty, just to spite all the nay-sayers.

My boyfriend, who was Chinese-Khmer, had five large wallpaper photos of white toddlers with flowers adorning their bald heads in his room.

Since I saw these posters in his friends’ homes, at local bars and grocery stores, I chalked it up to another cultural idiosyncrasy, like the packs of teenage boys and girls wearing glitter and rhinestone-studded hats in an effort to emulate what they believed to be fashionable in the West.

Though my boyfriend made it clear that he thought beauty came in all shades, he preferred fair-skinned women. I had already embarked on my mission to gradually become darker, so there was no turning back.

One night, my boyfriend was showing me photos on his phone and quickly clicked past, yet again, another image of a beautiful, sparkling-white child.

“What the fuck?” I screamed.

I had been bombarded with all this color-struck insanity for a while now, and this nameless baby put me over the edge.

I knew my boyfriend wasn’t a pedophile, and genuinely loved children, but it was so bizarre to have an image of a baby he did not know, from God-know’s where, posing for what appeared to be their parents’ living room portrait photoshoot, amongst the standard wallpaper selection options available for download, saved to his phone. Again, I have always appreciated diversity in all its glory, but there was something more insidious about the Asian obsession with parading their love of white babies and whiteness everywhere they could, when in reality, outside their tourists hubs, there were so few white faces to be found.

Except for Khmer Prime Minster Hun Sen’s wife, Dr. Bun Rany (I’m willing to bet she’s the whitest non-white person in Cambodia):

It all boils down to two major factors. The first involves the age-old value of preserving youth; the second, again, involves an ancient focus on preserving fair skin as an indicator of high socioeconomic status. Poor people worked outside as peasants in the fields and developed darker skin underneath the sun’s searing rays; lighter-skinned people were usually affluent, and could afford to stay at home, or work in an air-conditioned office somewhere. But my boyfriend worked in a bar, on the beach, and took after his father, as one of the darkest in his family.

He explained that the babies were “cute”—the same response I later received from my Indian boyfriend, who also kept photos of bright-white Caucasian babies saved to his phone. I asked to see the photos in their friends’ phones, and realized this was a trend among both women and men.

“You know no matter who you have kids with, your children will never look like this, right?”

He agreed. Everyone I questioned agreed, but still they focused on how “cute” these bright white babies were. I wondered whether this was just another cultural difference, or if I could recall anyone back home who collected photos of foreign babies in their phones.

I couldn’t.

Since so many Southeast Asians dreamed of marrying fair-skinned men and women, or becoming lighter themselves, I thought the mania surrounding photos of white babies possibly prevented them from losing sight of their goal—like how Christians decorate their homes with portraits of Jesus as a friendly reminder to be more God-like. Still, even if they settled with a Caucasian partner, the chances of them producing some Nordic-type child with near-florescent skin and icy-blue eyes were highly unlikely—and I made that clear to everyone who’d listen. Unfortunately, my efforts proved to be rather futile.

Towards the end of my time in Asia, I began to ignore all the pasty white skin and blue and green eyes staring back at me from the walls in friends’ homes, bars, billboards, and grocery stores. I was in awe of the rich, reddish, and golden brown hues beaming from the dark Asian faces. I had never seen anything like it—so wildly unique and initially jarring in all their beauty. But of course, to me, they were exotic.

If they love youth and babies so much, why don’t they just fill their homes, public spaces, and phones with copious amounts of beautiful Asian baby photos?

Sadly, I knew that the answer to that question was: they didn’t think they were beautiful—at least not enough. My friends told me these fair children were “different.” I likened this phenomenon to teenage boys hanging wallpapers of supermodels in their rooms, knowing they’d never have one, but still worthy of admiration from afar.

The baby fairness hoopla really is a trickle-down effect from the adult preoccupation with light skin. A high-profile border patrol agent, who once worked with my boyfriend, was engaged to be married, until his fiancé died before their wedding due to complications from an illegal Vietnamese skin whitening product. I’m an incredibly compassionate and empathic person, but I laughed so goddamned hard upon hearing the news. You really had to go and die before we could all see your pearly white face on your wedding day? What a waste.

In my eyes, Cambodians were just as beautiful as the first time I saw them crossing the border. I found no need for them to lighten, brighten, or bleach anything — but their reality wasn’t mine. As an educated person with viable skills, I didn’t have to rely on my skin color to snag potential suitors to support me in the future because my parents didn’t value education, couldn’t afford education, and/or also expected me to stay out of the sun to remain forever young and find a rich man to sweep me off my feet. With most people, especially the poor, there was always more emphasis on “beauty” and less concern with education. I met countless women who spoke about snagging a man as soon as their skin lightened.

After returning from my Southeast Asian adventures, I was greeted with excitement and awe by friends who had never seen me so tan. “Oh my God, I didn’t know you could get so dark!” “I’m so jealous!” “We love dark Angie!” Funny enough, these were the comments from my white friends, completely unaware of the grief I’d been given for my skin not being the right color. Needless to say, that experience has forever given me food for thought. When I recall the mania surrounding whiteness, all I can do is sit back as a disgruntled bystander, hoping those brainwashed souls will eventually learn to love the skin they’re in. Silently, I wish that they and their babies will reincarnate ten shades darker as punishment for their ass-backwards ways in their past lives.