This is weird, and not terribly uncommon, as far as I can tell: Caucasian mannequins. They seem to be prevalent even in stores that look like they cater to the Vietnamese. I have no idea what this means, but I'm sure someone must know.
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Maybe I have the scale wrong, but my first thought on seeing the picture was "White American Lawn Jockeys."
I'll go down to Beverly Hills
Just before dawn
And knock the little jockeys
Off the rich people's lawn
And before they get up
I'll be gone
That's fairly common throughout China, Cambodia, and Vietnam- even in someplace as 'developed' as Shanghai. And yes, they are set up in predominantly native shopping venues.
I'd hesitate to jump to the intellectually fashionable "imperialist western standard of beauty" explanation, however. These countries never went through the intellectual struggle with identity-politics in quite the same way as the West, as a result they are much less reluctant to appropriate ethnic stereotypes that they find "cute" or appealing. White babies (I have been assured) are invariably cute, while Western women are, without fail, much more "open" than native women. Therefore, when advertisers want to transmit a certain message, they insert the relevant stereotype.
Children's clothes and toys often feature white kids, and in China it almost impossible to find a lingerie ad that DOESN'T feature a white woman.
The parallel for us would be pocket calculators designed to look like bespectacled asian students or fried chicken restaurants endorsed by dancing negro farm-hands. WE find this type of thing offensive, but Asians don't see any harm in it- at least not yet.
If you're lucky you might see a mannequin I call The Shrieker. She's a 5.5-foot-tall, plastic, white woman with short spiky hair. Her head is thrown back, mouth agape in the midst of some primal scream- whether agony, ecstasy, or terror, I cannot say. Sometimes she's painted minstrel-show black, which is even more disturbing.
I think there are a couple of things at work here.
First, mannequins are a Western thing, so they're made to look like westerners. The market in mannequins is probably emerging, so they're not in a position to ask for asian-looking mannequins.
Second, the look is a selling point. Westerners have money, and white is desirable. Dark skin = outdoor labor = lower class. I'm surprised that nobody has told you how beautiful your white skin is.
It doesn't seem to be true for these particular mannequins, but in several Asian countries, the way that Asians portray themselves in casual design looks very Caucasian to Caucasians.
The other cute thing is the sign next to the mannequins: "Sua chua quan ao bo zin". That means they mend denim clothes: "repair" (sua chua) of "clothes" (quan ao) "blue jeans" (bo zin). Interesting question whether "bo zin" comes by way of a Franglais version from the '40s-'50s or by way of Americans in South Vietnam in the '50s-'70s.
On mannequins, I'm assumed these mannequins are bought wholesale or second hand from the west.
On linguists-note-the-darnedest things: Is z (the letter not the sound) a frequent addition to popular Vietnamese? It certainly doesn't figure into the traditional alphabet...
My dictionary doesn't have bò zin (or the other likely suspects din or gin)
If you go to the Philippines, the mannequins have huge, joker like smiles. I assume they must be made for the local population, as I've never seen them elsewhere.
Probably it just means they bought them cheap at a wholesale trading market in Russia or Turkey. Lots of Vietnamese work as small - scale dry goods traders here in Prague and throughout Eastern Europe.
Rob R can't wait 'til his 'Fro is full-grown.
Two Korean Americans I know have told me at great length that in many Asian cultures, it is considered much more desirable to have whiter/paler skin. This isn't necessarily anything to do with envy of actual "white" people, racially. It comes partly from an aesthetic judgment that it just looks better and goes better with nice clothes, but more from an impression that darker skin is indicative of hard labor out in the sun and paler skin is indicative of pampered aristocracy relaxing indoors all day. Either way, the result is that paler skin is desirable.
Or so they tell me, anyway.
Geoff,
I'd heard something similar from a Cantonese classmate in college. There's also the question of traditional geisha's make-up--don't they paint themselves literally white?
I am told that within most races women tend to have paler skin than men, and that darker skin is therefore a sign of masculinity.
Not a thing that a caucasian male particularly wants to hear, but a point of some interest to the fashion industry.
I read somewhere, and am too lazy to look it up now, that Mattel tried to make Barbies for Asian markets that looked Asian, but that they were a total flop. So now they sell the original blonde Caucasian Barbie in Asia with great success.
my first thought on seeing the picture was "White American Lawn Jockeys."
Heh-heh. My first thought was "wooden Indians." These used to mark tobacco stores.
Regarding pale skin being fashionable - in Hong Kong, they sell a lot of skin whiteners and talk about ways to keep your skin white (including carrying an umbrella when it's sunny, to shade your face). It was harder for darker-skinned women from the Philippines, Thailand or Indonesia to get a job as a domestic helper in Hong Kong - the local Hong Kong Chinese claimed that a dark-skinned maid would scare the children.
I agree with Geoff that this isn't envy of white people. It goes back much farther and probably has to do with the skin-darkening effects of outdoor work. Look at the other fashions in China - crippling women by binding their feet, growing long fingernails, even ideally being too fat to stand, since all of these showed that the person was too rich to have to work.
It's also part of the general racism/ethnic prejudice, which seems to be considered natural in Asia. It's simply clear to 'everyone' that Chinese/Japanese/Koreans/Filipinos/whoever are genetically and culturally superior, so why pretend otherwise?
This distinction isn't unique to Asian cultures; the same phenomenon used to show up in American culture but white people don't tan as well so we ended up term "redneck" indicate the lower social status of who labor in the sun.
The skin-tone thing would explain having images of pale-skinned Asians. I'm not sure how it'd explain specific Caucasian features in dolls or mannequins.
I could see the idea that Caucasians are sexier, or more accurately associated with being more sexually liberal; and therefore marketable with lingerie. I'm not sure I get the theory that white babies would be any cuter than Asian babies or any babies. If anything I would think that as Caucasians generally have larger noses than East Asians white babies could be deemed "less cute" by certain measures.
I think it may have to do with folklore. When my family lived in Southeast Asia my blond haired blue eyed kids would frequenly be approached by Asians who wanted to have their pictures taken with my children. I was told that any person or animal that had albino characteristics was considered lucky, in keeping with the legend of the white monkey who is the protaganist in the Ramayana myth
I have to disagree with those who think that the mannequins must have come from the West. When my wife and I were in Taiwan, we regularly saw ads on buses featuring white women. These were just photos, and not mannequins. I'm sure Taiwan is financially capable of producing its own photos.