That is the first line of a popular song here that my three-year-old neighbor was singing the other evening. Her parents taught it to her as a joke.

Iew has the darkest skin of anyone in her family, and in a country that bases so much of its social interactions on comparison, she is forced to hear comments on it daily. Having white skin is such a strongly held ideal that it seems everyone is focused on it. Most face lotions, powders, even deoderant contain whitener. People are often holding up their arms to each other to compare skin tone. A Nigerian expat I met recently complained about the Thai people not being hospital. I’m convinced his vastly different experience is based on his appearance (and the assumptions that go along with that).

Hence the lyrics to the song that would never be aired in the States (at least not nowadays). That same evening, Iew’s mother was holding her affectionately, pointing to the TV at a beautiful, white-skinned Thai woman and telling her daughter “that woman is very pretty. You’re not pretty at all– you’re so black.” With a smile on her face. I don’t understand.

And so as a three-year-old, Iew is already trying to find some other way to look beautiful. In contrast to her sister and cousin she lives with, Iew is obviously a dancer and performer. Every evening I am over she shows me her new dance moves, which are disturbingly provocative. I couldn’t figure out where she was learning it until I was over later one night and saw that her parents were letting her watch the equivalent of MTV (they were actually watching it with her).

Please pray for this little girl. I’ve made it my mission to tell her daily that she is beautiful (and she really is), that she has beautiful skin, that God made her this way. Pray that God would protect her from the temptations to be provocative as she grows older and begins to understand what that really means (and what she can get for it). Pray for her parents, Chiao and Lin, who have good intentions and really love their daughter but are also a product of the corruption in this culture. Pray that more people in this country would come to know their Creator and accept who he has made them to be.