Cultural Perceptions of Beauty

We have been learning about what beauty looks like in different cultures around the world. We have been finding some very different and interesting cultural practices.

Neck stretching - Bruno Wylie

Relax and slowly lift your chin to the starting position. Next, rotate your head to one side while keeping your shoulders nice and straight. Hold the stretch for 15 to 30 seconds. You'll feel tension in the side of your neck and your shoulder. This is what you have to do to get your neck stretched.
In a few African and Asian cultures neck rings are worn usually to create the appearance that the neck has been stretched. Padaung (Kayan Lahwi) women of the Kayan people begin to wear neck coils from as young as age two. The length of the coil is gradually increased to as much as twenty turns. They do this because in their culture it means your beautiful.

Foot binding - Tessa Nettlingham

Foot binding was inspired by Yao Niang. Over 3 billion China woman have had their feet bound despite it was a long and painful experience that you would keep for life. The process meant broken feet but the ladies thought it was beauty. Without these feet you are not able to get married. The process of this is when you wrap lots of bandages around the foot to make it tight and form the toes to curl around the foot. For most of their life they keep bandages on their feet, and over that period of time your toes brake and squish to make yourself look beautiful. 

They turn out like this.




Lip Plating - Belle Rainger
It is in Africa where people go around with large wooden/pottery discs also know as a plate in their lower lip. The plate is sign of being apart of the Mursi Tribe and wearing the plate with a symbol of pride. A girls lower lip is cut by her mother or another woman when she reaches the age of 15 or 16. The process is quite easy although it is quite unpleasant for the girl having it done. First a small hole is cut into the lip and the 2 lower teeth are removed. Then then the plate is put in which stretches the lip out so the plate can fit. For a woman to get married you have to have this done and the bigger the plate in diameter the more cattle and the more cattle the better.