Talk to Fa

I recently met two jewelry designers. One was from a small town in Argentina, and the other from Brazil. They were speaking Portuguese when I walked into their shop. The Argentine woman spoke Portuguese because her partner is from Brazil. She said Argentina has beautiful cities and villages, but its beaches aren’t so great. She said Brazil has way better beaches.

After chatting for a while, they complimented my skin, saying my tan was beautiful. The Argentine said she couldn’t tan like me because she was too pale. I told them it’s the sun and that the sun loves me. I’m probably the darkest I’ve ever been. Growing up in Japan, where pale skin is glamorized and over-idealized, women around me wore sunscreen and cover-ups daily. I always questioned the excessive aversion to the sun. In Japan, dark skin is often associated with farmers and physical laborers. Yeah, I get it because I know enough cultural nuances, but it’s still stupid because it comes from such a low, insecure place. As a kid, I played outside a lot, so I naturally got a tan in the summer. People often teased me for being darker, so I wore sunscreen and tried to avoid the sun as I hit puberty. Today, I love sunbathing and do not wear sunscreen at all. It feels toxic to me.

Back to the story. As I was leaving the shop, a thought hit me. What if people who do horrible things—dictators, colonizers, slave owners, criminals, psychopaths—are the way they are because they haven’t absorbed enough sun? Do they lack vitamin D? Maybe the lack goes way back to their previous generations. What if they hate themselves because the sun doesn’t love them? So they do horrible things to people who are in touch with the sun. Do you notice that those on the receiving end of tragedy tend to have darker skin? The sun's warmth gives me vitality that nothing else can. It lifts my mood and nourishes and strengthens my body, and seeing my skin darken in response to the sun makes me happy. I wonder what the world’s outcome would have been if they had simply admired those loved by the sun, rather than dictating, colonizing, owning, hurting, and abusing them.