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superborbtl;dr: Where should the line of going too far in chinaboo behavior be? When is it gatekeeping? The particular example I've chosen to illustrate is sajiao WWX.
I want to be careful and say upfront that this isn't directed at anyone in particular and that fandom is ultimately everyone's own experience. I also have complicated feelings on this topic and haven't fully worked through everything, so I would actually love to discuss this further to develop ideas etc. Or if anyone has relevant meta/essays to link, I would enjoy reading those.
MDZS/CQL has attracted a lot of people for whom this is their first Chinese source fandom. This is cool! It's nice to be able to share something with so many people. I love the community feeling of fandom, where you can squee over fun things and throw around headcanons. There's also a big contingent of English speaking Chinese diaspora folks, which is also nice! It's fun to learn about culture and tease out the differences in everyone's experiences.
I'm going to use the trope of WWX being cute / pouty / xianxian is three! here, bc it's the one that caused me to start thinking of this topic and for a concrete example.
This behavior is called "sajiao" in China; it is analogous to "aegyo" in Korea or "aikyou" in Japan. The most direct translation IMO is "to act coquettish," but despite what a google search will have you believe, is NOT exclusively girls flirting with their boyfriends. It's used by both genders as an affectionate gesture towards family or friends. Lest I overcorrect against the Orientalist articles, it is most definitely also used to flirt.
I love sajiao, and do adore when WWX sajiaos. It's an aspect of flirtation is totally natural to the character! And accordingly, I love when it's incorporated into fic.
What makes me a little uncomfortable is how this occasionally ventures into fetishizing territory. I'm trying to be careful here to not cast judgement, but rather analyze my own impulses and feelings. A lot of this stems from growing up in the US, where yellow fever is definitely a thing and how as a result, I will always be hesitant and wary of people fetishizing Asians. So when I see sajiao used in ways that are tonally wrong, I have the impulse to recoil and (in my head) chalk it up to them being a chinaboo.
(An interlude: the diaspora, grew up as the minority perspective here is key. Asians-in-Asia, especially East Asians, grew up as the dominant culture, and so their baseline concept of racism and fetishization is very different. I'm explicitly calling this out bc it's an important distinction. Someone Chinese from China would probably view the same thing that bothers me and go "oh it's nice that they're trying" or similar.)
At the same time, there's the competing thought of: is it gatekeeping to say something like that? Why must everything be precise to my personal boundaries of chinaboo behavior? If someone in a non-Chinese fandom went around pouting all the time and acting cute, would I just consider it OOC instead of going to the "fetishizing!" place? There is also obviously considerable variation in how people behave, when is it just exaggerated for effect or the joke, am I being humorless by feeling uncomfortable?
I'm extremely unlikely to start calling out specific examples, by the by, and I picked sajiao as an example bc there isn't IMO a black and white answer on it. I am more interested in thinking about how fandom, as a social group, navigates the line between "this is a thing that I find cute/hot/compelling" to "this is fetishizing but in a way that doesn't harm anyone" to "as a dominant view in fandom, it distorts our perspectives on the culture." Additionally, how we navigate this without lurching from wank to flamewar. (Are those terms outdated now? I'm old.) I don't think it's useful to gatekeep, or to say "thou must not xyz," especially since it rarely results in shifting opinions.
I want to be careful and say upfront that this isn't directed at anyone in particular and that fandom is ultimately everyone's own experience. I also have complicated feelings on this topic and haven't fully worked through everything, so I would actually love to discuss this further to develop ideas etc. Or if anyone has relevant meta/essays to link, I would enjoy reading those.
MDZS/CQL has attracted a lot of people for whom this is their first Chinese source fandom. This is cool! It's nice to be able to share something with so many people. I love the community feeling of fandom, where you can squee over fun things and throw around headcanons. There's also a big contingent of English speaking Chinese diaspora folks, which is also nice! It's fun to learn about culture and tease out the differences in everyone's experiences.
I'm going to use the trope of WWX being cute / pouty / xianxian is three! here, bc it's the one that caused me to start thinking of this topic and for a concrete example.
This behavior is called "sajiao" in China; it is analogous to "aegyo" in Korea or "aikyou" in Japan. The most direct translation IMO is "to act coquettish," but despite what a google search will have you believe, is NOT exclusively girls flirting with their boyfriends. It's used by both genders as an affectionate gesture towards family or friends. Lest I overcorrect against the Orientalist articles, it is most definitely also used to flirt.
I love sajiao, and do adore when WWX sajiaos. It's an aspect of flirtation is totally natural to the character! And accordingly, I love when it's incorporated into fic.
What makes me a little uncomfortable is how this occasionally ventures into fetishizing territory. I'm trying to be careful here to not cast judgement, but rather analyze my own impulses and feelings. A lot of this stems from growing up in the US, where yellow fever is definitely a thing and how as a result, I will always be hesitant and wary of people fetishizing Asians. So when I see sajiao used in ways that are tonally wrong, I have the impulse to recoil and (in my head) chalk it up to them being a chinaboo.
(An interlude: the diaspora, grew up as the minority perspective here is key. Asians-in-Asia, especially East Asians, grew up as the dominant culture, and so their baseline concept of racism and fetishization is very different. I'm explicitly calling this out bc it's an important distinction. Someone Chinese from China would probably view the same thing that bothers me and go "oh it's nice that they're trying" or similar.)
At the same time, there's the competing thought of: is it gatekeeping to say something like that? Why must everything be precise to my personal boundaries of chinaboo behavior? If someone in a non-Chinese fandom went around pouting all the time and acting cute, would I just consider it OOC instead of going to the "fetishizing!" place? There is also obviously considerable variation in how people behave, when is it just exaggerated for effect or the joke, am I being humorless by feeling uncomfortable?
I'm extremely unlikely to start calling out specific examples, by the by, and I picked sajiao as an example bc there isn't IMO a black and white answer on it. I am more interested in thinking about how fandom, as a social group, navigates the line between "this is a thing that I find cute/hot/compelling" to "this is fetishizing but in a way that doesn't harm anyone" to "as a dominant view in fandom, it distorts our perspectives on the culture." Additionally, how we navigate this without lurching from wank to flamewar. (Are those terms outdated now? I'm old.) I don't think it's useful to gatekeep, or to say "thou must not xyz," especially since it rarely results in shifting opinions.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 09:17 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 16:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 14:59 (UTC)Fwiw, these concerns are part of why I was very wary of making any fandom contributions as someone who doesn't have enough understanding of the parent culture to make informed calls.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-13 20:10 (UTC)These kind of subtle things are by their nature more fuzzy and difficult to define...
no subject
Date: 2020-12-13 21:39 (UTC)What I meant is mh. This is difficult to explain. As you said, for many - me included - this is the first Chinese language fandom with a whole new set of tropes. Which is cool! I love branching out! At the same time, I know how much wank there has been in the past (I'm not saying you're doing this at all, please don't misunderstand me).
And I know I personally am not very well versed in Chinese (and many other!) culture, and am probably missing already layers in the narrative that are pretty plain for someone who is Chinese-in-China or diaspora (so to stay in our example, I didn't know sajiao and I didn't know the term chinaboo either, although I do know fetishization of Asians is a thing, although this is an academic understanding). And so by writing something, I could possibly act like an bull in a china shop (pun not intended) without even knowing it even if I do careful research. It's always different knowing something academically rather than personally, and it's easy to miss subtext unintentionally. At the same time, while I know people of Chinese origin - both in China and in the diaspora - I don't want to make anyone feel like a resource to satisfy my curiosity or my fandom needs.
So in short, in my ignorance it is very easy to be offensive either to the parent culture (Chinese in China) or the diaspora and/or both or come across as chinaboo. Simply because I don't know better, even if I do try to educate myself beforehand. And I don't like to make people feel bad about something I've created, because that's not why I write things, I want for as many people as possible to be able to enjoy it (even if my audience may be niche in other fandoms, and even though I know there will always be something to take offense with). While of course I will always apologize and course correct if I'm being told, it's harder to wipe up spilled milk than to prevent it spilling in the first place, and someone needs to point out it's offensive in the first place.
So that is why I'm saying I was wary of doing this. I know this is possibly selfish and probably a problem of privilege to have and I definitely didn't want to make this your problem. What you say in your post in very valuable knowledge and I really appreciate these different glimpses that we get!
ETA: Plus, I'm not American yet I write in English, so that adds another potential layer or cultural misunderstanding to the whole thing. XD
no subject
Date: 2020-12-14 14:53 (UTC)tbh, most of the stuff that gets called out seems to be very much "oh I didn't like this person" instead of like, actually the stuff that's an Issue? So from afar it just looks like it's being weaponized as an easy way to attack someone...
no subject
Date: 2020-12-15 18:13 (UTC)Oh I'm definitely not saying no non-Chinese person (diaspora or what) should write fic. That....would exclude myself also, yeah. But I'm really glad because the whole thing had definitely kicked me into doing some research and learning new things! Which is always good, even if it sometimes confuses real life people.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-13 15:32 (UTC)I'm familiar with a similar phenomenon re: aegyo in Korean-media fandoms and I know I've read some meta bout it; if I come across it again, would you be interested in links from a Korean/Korean diaspora pov?
I have to admit: my goodness gracious WWX's sajiao is the most appealing thing!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-13 20:10 (UTC)It's so cute qq
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 05:28 (UTC)Does WWX sajiao-ing set you off mostly in single-line context mismatches, or when it's his dominant characteristic in a scene/story? He's such a complex character, so I wonder if when someone takes that single trait and exaggerates it to cover his whole persona, it makes it feel like (racial) stereotyping or fetishizing. (I just hate it because in excess it feels like bad characterization, lol)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 16:40 (UTC)I think it's a lot easier to brush off single line weirdness. It's also weird when it's used as a dominant characteristic bc sajiao is like, a behavior you do kind of performatively? And you usually only do it to people you're very close to who would be receptive to it, so it's especially strange to see it as a general trait. But yeah, where is the line between fetishizing and just bad characterization -- bc it's also bad characterization!