美黑，對于熱衷于美白的亞洲人來說絕對是美容的另類，不過，不另類也就顯不出你是時尚頂尖的弄潮兒了。在大家都慌忙著加倍美白又防曬的時候，美黑一族在2006年夏天也燦爛地活動開來，美容院的經典“美白”招牌也漸漸被“美黑沙龍”所代替。這種沙龍通常為客人提供日曬床，日曬燈，日曬噴霧服務，以及一系列日曬輔助產品，用來幫助那些喜愛棕色皮膚，又沒有時間或是環境到大自然中享受陽光的美黑一族。

A customer waits to start her tanning session at a tanning salon in Shanghai August 1, 2006. [Reuters] Bronze Bodies, a newly opened tanning salon in fashionable central Shanghai, has expanded its VIP membership to about 900 people and is planning to deliver value-added services like how to coordinate hair and clothes with newly tanned skin.  "I am making a fashion statement," owner Li Rui told Reuters. "It's not merely about tanned skin , but creating a fresh lifestyle choice for Chinese." The service is not for everyone, though, being unaffordable for most ordinary Chinese. A one-month course of tanning sessions costs between 700 yuan ($88) and 2,000 yuan, almost the average monthly wage in Shanghai. "People can immediately tell how wealthy you are by looking at your golden tanned skin," said a tanning branch manager who identified herself as Jin. "It looks shiny and healthy, quite different from the dim and coarse skin of day laborers." The appearance of tanned models on billboards around China and of bronzed actors, such as Hong Kong heart throb Louis Koom, on television and at the movies is also having an impact. Lulu, an aspiring Shanghai singer does not want to look like the pasty skinned stars of her youth. Hispanic US actress-singer Jennifer Lopez is more her style. "It looks sunny and outgoing, not pale and fragile," she said. She is in the minority for Chinese women as tanning salon owners say 70 percent of their customers are men. Women generally opt for the traditionally defined concepts of beauty in China which call for pale skin, untouched by the sun. The young and trendy have been the first to pick up on the tanning fashion in China as well as people who have lived abroad and want to show off their new sophistication. Student He Ziqing tops up his tan at a salon in Shanghai after picking up the sun bathing bug on a trip to Germany. "Germans enjoy sun bathing on the beach. I go with my German friends when I'm there on holiday," he said, adding he did not visit the artificial beaches that sprout in Shanghai's suburbs during the punishing hot summers. "It's too course to do that here," he sniffed. (Agency)

Vocabulary:

tanning salon: 曬黑沙龍，日曬沙龍，美黑沙龍 tanned skin: 黝黑（曬黑）的皮膚 opt for: 選擇 the sun bathing bug: 癡迷日光浴，bug指“著迷” （英語點津陳蓓編輯）