Welcome readers, to a brand new occasional series of posts: Eyeshadow Tutorials for Asian Eye Shapes! In this series I hope to give out a few tips for Asian eye makeup. Part 2 can be found HERE, and more parts are forthcoming.) The fictional character Fu Manchu (right) perpetuates the notion of the 'Yellow Danger', a racist notion that Asian culture threatens Western society.(Edited to add: This is part 1 of a multipart series. "Chinese society doesn't have to follow their standards of what is considered beautiful and what kind of woman is considered beautiful."Īs a Chinese brand, Three Squirrels "should have been aware of the sensitivity of Chinese consumers about how they are portrayed in advertisements", the article added.Īt the center of the controversy is the perception that such depictions gave rise to the "slanted eye" stereotype of Asians that emerged in Western culture in the 19th century, and is considered highly offensive by many Asians today. "The West no longer has an absolute opinion on anything," the opinion article continued. This includes depicting Asian women in advertisements as having slanted eyes, he wrote.
Many have asked why these products don't sport the model more commonly seen in Chinese advertisements, whose fair skin and large round eyes are typically considered the country's ideal beauty.Īn editorial article published by state-owned media China Daily recently highlighted how "for too long, the West's criteria for beauty, and Western tastes, what they like and don't like, dominate aesthetics".
Recently, outrage on social media has also arisen over advertisements by Mercedes-Benz and Gucci, both of whom also sport slanted-eyed Chinese models.Īmid growing online nationalism and anti-Western sentiment in China, some take these ads as examples of racism against the Chinese people.īy presenting slanted-eyed models, critics say these companies perpetuate Western stereotypes of Chinese faces.Ĭhen Man's photo for the well-known brand Dior invites criticism from a number of Chinese citizens The photo shows a Chinese model with slanted eyes. In November, a Chinese fashion photographer apologized for his "indifference" after a photo he took for an advertisement for luxury brand Dior caused strong reactions. This ad, which was taken in 2019, was discovered by nationalist netizens, after the topic of advertising products featuring Chinese people became a sensitive topic of online debate in the country. 'The West no longer has absolute opinion' "Did I insult China from the day I was born just because of my face?" "My face is similar to my parents," the 28-year-old model wrote on the Weibo platform. Some social media users were so angry that the snack food company removed the ad from cyberspace, and apologized for "making people feel uncomfortable" because of it.īut Cai herself said she didn't know why she was bullied online, considering she was just "doing her job" as a model. The accusations leveled against him? Has slanted eyes. That's what Chinese model Cai Niangniang wrote in a recent social media post, after an old photo of her went viral for the wrong reasons.įor several days, he was attacked online on the grounds of being "blatantly insulting" and "unpatriotic", because of a series of advertisements he starred in for the Chinese snack brand Three Squirrels.
"Am I not entitled to be Chinese just because my eyes are small?" Cai Niangniang attacked online for being "offensive"