One of the first things many visitors notice about Thailand is that all the construction workers - putting in ten hour days in 38 degree heat - wear long-sleeve shirts, gloves, full-face masks and wide brimmed hats.  It often confuses the pasty tourist, already dripping with sweat after strolling a few hundred feet out of their air-conned hotel lobby.  The reason: dark skin is considered ugly here in Asia, and therefore, white skin is very desirable, like in this ridiculous ad that sees a girl using light reflecting off her skin to signal a boat at sea.  The reasoning behind the parka-clad construction workers is that working in the sun is a sure sign to get uglier - better to sweat than get a tan (this is likely a holdover from days of yore, when the aristocratic class did no menial labour, and therefore were never outside in the sun).  But the other thing that many people notice is the apparent disregard for workplace safety on nearly every construction site.