cultural differences

I'm not entirely sure whether this is a cultural difference or a generational difference--I'm pretty sure it's a cultural thing since it wouldn't have just changed abruptly like it did if it was the result of a changing fashion.

Anyway.

Face painters are always a common staple at events geared towards kids and families and sometimes at birthday parties, as well. It was that way in Yorkshire and it was that way in the US. But like with a lot of the things shared trans-Atlatic, it's the same name for basically the same practice but the Brits and Americans do it in two completely different ways.

I loved getting my face painted as a kid. I love costumes in general--there's probably some deep, profound psychological subtext in that but I'm feeling too lazy to try and find it--and in England my parents always knew that if we were going somewhere that had a face-painter hired, I was going to beg to get it done. But I think I only grew to love it because of how they do it over there. Over there, 'face painting' means the entire face painted up like a mask or Halloween costume makeup. My favourites were animals, so if I said I wanted, say, a tiger then the painter would do my entire face up orange with black stripes and drawn whiskers and nose and white accents in a really quite startlingly professional manner. And then I'd spend the rest of the day pretending to be a tiger and throw a royal hissy fit when my mom decided it was time to wipe all that crap off my face.

Within the first few months of moving to the US, my parents were invited to some big party or other and there was a face painter there for kids. I asked for a lion (it was around the time 'The Lion King' had just come out) and was deeply disappointed and dismayed when this request was interpreted as 'I want a small half-assed lion face on one of my cheeks'. Every subsequent experience I had with American parties had the same result, while in England the full-face-mask practice, as far as I know, continues to this day.

I don't know if it's a country/culture thing or what but I've never been quite able to shake my disappointment that it's not an acceptable practice here to give children elaborate full 'masks' of face paint so they can pretend they're wolves or tigers or mummies or aliens all day long.