Skeptical as she may be, Miller nonetheless describes the Japanese personal hygiene and beautification industry with relish. Few things escape her gaze. We learn of the nation's recent obsession with breast size, though nothing in Japan, she writes, "could top the fact that millions of American women have had plastic baggies of gel sewn into their chests" [her italics]. She also treats us to the phenomenon of products aimed at decreasing the unpleasant odor of feces, sold to the likes of one informant who explained that she was going away for a night with her boyfriend and didn't want to spoil the sweet ambiance of their love when she visited the bathroom. One such product is called Etiquette Up, and the use of the term "up" in so many Japanese beauty items gives this book its strange title.
She's interesting on skin-whiteners, too, as popular in Japan as they are in Taiwan, and sold in Asia by American companies with advertising that proclaims the need to rid oneself of "problem" (dark skin) that needs to be "fixed" — terminology that would be entirely unacceptable in print in the US.
It's all very well for Laura Miller to resist the idea that Japan's beauty preferences derive from the US, but such visions of loveliness have to come from somewhere. It wasn't so long ago that high-class Japanese women blackened their teeth, bound their breasts so as to flatten them, cultivated plumpness and considered the fold-less eyelid as highly desirable. All of these preferences have now been reversed. American ideals with local modifications would appear to explain the nature of today's ideals of physical beauty in East Asia.
There's much else in this book. There's a section on blood types, for instance, and the personality traits they supposedly bring with them. Being asked about my blood type was one of the things that surprised me most when I first came to Taiwan — even in nearby Hong Kong no one had ever asked me that question. As in so many other areas, Taiwan here appears to be welcoming cultural influences from its former colonial master.
At one point Miller exclaims that she is opposed to surgical intervention for cosmetic reasons in any culture. Such ideals from the 1970s of the beauty of the natural within us are certainly admirable, and there are signs they may soon become dominant again. Even so, I suspect humanity's age-old penchant for alteration and adaptation will win out in the end. It's certainly in control today. Whether it's fitness clubs, depilation, cosmetic dentistry, cellulite reduction, eyebrow styling, seaweed shampoos, nipple bleaching or studs through the tongue, profits have never been higher. I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person left who feels that, even if I could afford half these things, they wouldn't in the final analysis make that much difference. But at least I have the consolation that the perspicacious author of this wise book appears to agree with me.
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