黑人亮白

I hadn't yet, but I was about to run out of toothpaste. And while I felt I would make it through the night with what I had left, I decided not to risk it. I put on my Birkenstocks, just outside my front door, and made the very short trip to "Watson's: your personal store".

This would be my first time. Watson's sits on the corner of 長榮路　and 東寧路, the two streets that form the intersection into which my alley juts. I see it every day several times. It's a bright store and when you walk by, even from a distance, you can feel the air conditioning overflowing onto the street.

I walked in and saw what I needed right away but decided to walk the short aisles before leaving. It proved to be well stocked, a good store to know about. I grabbed the cheapest of what was available, which was not cheap at all, and headed to the counter.

While I waited in line I looked at the display I saw when I first walked in. It was stocked with sale items, among them toothpaste and mouthwash. On one box of toothpaste I realized I could read all the characters that made up the name of the product: 黑人亮白. I returned my gaze to the counter and mulled the characters over in my head.

Literally, they are translated as "black person _____ white." I knew how to pronounce the _____, but only knew the character in the context of 漂亮, which means pretty.

Intrigued, I turned back to the display and noticed that on the same toothpaste box was a kind of outline of what might be described as a Jim Crow era black man caricature. I decided a less literal translation, but perhaps more accurate would be "Black People Pearly Whites."

I have not seen one black person in Tainan since I have been here, and it is interesting to note how the absence of a shared history of subjugation and oppression works in conjunction with different cultural norms to produce things like toothpaste.

I like it.