2018-05-03

Chinese Do Not Suffer Baizuo Lightly: Cultural Appropriation Edition

A girl in Utah wore a qipao to her prom. This earned her the wrath of Twitter and 170,000 dislikes after someone claimed she was appropriating Chinese culture. For those who are unfamiliar, cultural appropriation is the latest campus insanity in the U.S. which says people from foreign cultures cannot "appropriate" foreign culture, aka celebrate foreign holidays, wear foreign clothing, etc. The stupidity of this is evident if you think about it for more than 5 seconds, but American universities don't teach logic anymore, only indoctrination. Most people who think cultural appropriation is a real thing have never lived in a foreign country. It is American provincialism to the max. Additionally, when you go through history you can find examples of people being banned from certain cultural attire, but it is usually used for oppressing of a minority group. What is interesting in the U.S. is it is used to oppress the majority group, but with no conception of its origin or of the consequences if it became ingrained in society.

NYTimes: Teenager’s Prom Dress Stirs Furor in U.S. — but Not in China
After Ms. Daum, 18, shared pictures on social media of her prom night, a Twitter user named Jeremy Lam hotly responded in a post that has been retweeted nearly 42,000 times.
“My culture is NOT” your prom dress, he wrote, adding profanity for effect.

“I’m proud of my culture,” he wrote in another post. “For it to simply be subject to American consumerism and cater to a white audience, is parallel to colonial ideology.”

Some Twitter users who described themselves as Asian-American seized on Ms. Daum’s dress — a form-fitting red cheongsam (also known as a qipao) with black and gold ornamental designs — as an example of cultural appropriation, a sign of disrespect and exploitation. Other Asian-Americans said the criticism was silly.

“This isn’t ok,” wrote someone with the user name Jeannie. “I wouldn’t wear traditional Korean, Japanese or any other traditional dress and I’m Asian. I wouldn’t wear traditional Irish or Swedish or Greek dress either. There’s a lot of history behind these clothes. Sad.”

When the furor reached Asia, though, many seemed to be scratching their heads. Far from being critical of Ms. Daum, who is not Chinese, many people in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan proclaimed her choice of the traditional high-necked dress as a victory for Chinese culture.
Chinese commenters online quickly made short work of the entire affair, immediately shooting holes through the whole idea of "cultural appropriation." Here's one example from a Sohu article on the topic: 美国妹子穿了件旗袍,被17万人diss,华人吵翻了:这是不是侮辱中国文化?

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