Thoughts For No Reason Whatsoever I'm Sure

[superborb]

1. Diaspora vs Chinese-from-China feelings on culture. Growing up diaspora means living through racism that completely colors the perspective -- it's hard to explain why wearing qipao as a costume is A Problem or cultural appropriation broadly to people who haven't had the experience of it being uncool and othering when you do something and then cool when a white person does it. From someone who grew up in the dominant culture, it just seems like a good thing that people are interested, right?

Anyway, this leads to a feeling (a logical one!) of possessiveness over the tidbits of culture that you can claim for yourself.

2. The nuances of cultural erasure for a canon that was created by the dominant ethnicity and culture of Somewhere Else. As point 1 says, I highly doubt Chinese-from-China would feel as possessive over MDZS/CQL as diaspora fans do. They have many canons that reflect their world; as diaspora, there is relatively few canons that speak to the Chinese diaspora experience. So we attach ourselves to the things we can see a glimmer of ourselves in, in familiar faces, even though we aren't really their target audience.

I personally don't like most modern AUs or really, fic that gets too removed from the Chinese roots of the canon and just /feels/ wrong. It's just not what I enjoy reading. But I'd argue that it's way more erasure to celebrate [insert vaguely often American modern AU here] through its ubiquity and influence on the fandom. I know I fall more on the "this is a transformative works" fandom side of things generally, though I also know that fic and fandom can be deeply racist. But blanket bans on what kind of transformative works are permissive... MDZS/CQL are out there in the world! We can't erase it by any fanworks.

I do fully understand /why/ people are uncomfortable with certain transformations, I just think that in the absence of criticism of transformations that are similar, it leads to point 3.

3. I am so, so, so uncomfortable with anti-Semitism in a world where the alt right is resurging. Adding to the previous tweets I made a while back, characterizing Jews as "greedy," "taking over" are clearly dogwhistles. Please, I beg you, do not. The double standard where Christian AUs don't get backlash? Also seriously anti-Semitic.

As a nonreligious person who grew up in the US, where Christian Chinese are common, I absolutely 100% really do not like Christian AUs. And hey-- I can skip them when they're tagged. The fic getting backlashed was tagged as AU and Jewish from the very beginning.

In conclusion, I don't really want to be ~discourse all the time~ like I feel like I've been recently. I wanted to do two things: a. to push back on the narrative of "you're pushing out diaspora folks!" a bit and b. leave an opening for my ideal, a more nuanced discussion about why certain things feel like erasure and certain things do not. I think it would be revealing.

Comments

[rekishi]

it's hard to explain why wearing qipao as a costume is A Problem or cultural appropriation broadly to people who haven't had the experience of it being uncool and othering when you do something and then cool when a white person does it. From someone who grew up in the dominant culture, it just seems like a good thing that people are interested, right?

Well. This is the sort of discussion I usually stay out of for the simple reason that I am the dominant culture whee I am (though being ex-US, our racism discussions have to be different), and obviously I'm still making this comment.

Because I do understand your stance. However, the general currency in a lot of these discussions is "it's okay if it's being shared!" which is how we explain bagels and the alphabet. And then we get to the very difficult situation where the culture-in-the-original-country (China, India, what have you) does share these things freely and encouragingly. Even though white people look very silly in a qipao, if you spend extended periods there then you're encouraged at some point to wear it (at least a decade ago, this happened to my friend) and also bring it back to you and yours. Same for sari and bindi, where you are very much encouraged to wear it when you go there and spend time with the people there.

So how in the world do we draw the line between sharing and taking? Yes, not everyone will go to China and India and wherever, but how do you tell the difference if you don't know the people? Is someone who lived a two years in India and adopted sari as a dress choice required to stop when they came back to their non-Indian country of origin? Can I still plait my hair even though I have no clue where plaiting originated (ok I'm being facetious, sorry, although this actually was an honest to god argument one)?

And I'm really really sad that this is a discussion we need to have and that people just can't accept that other people are different and maybe not like themselves. Othering and xenophobia are animal instincts and we should be beyond those (clearly we aren't, the human brain is a jerry-rigged mess).

I don't think there are good answers and I am trying to be very very careful about all of this as you know and we talked about this before.

As for anti-Semitism (there are Christian AUs, srsly?) *sigh* I wish people would recognize that this is *also* racism, but this is a huge problem also with the way race (I hate that word, I know that it's a concept in English, but it is really so deeply deeply wrong) is perceived in the US. There is also no good solution, aside from making people more aware and I know that this backfires more often than it leads to a fruitful discussion.

I'm sorry. It's all I can say, I'm sorry people are being...well. Like this and I'm sorry people still grow up feeling othered in their own country of birth. That's really deeply shitty and I wish there was a solution. And yes, I know it happens everywhere.

:(

[superborb]

Yeah, it's a complicated situation!! And I think it is so much more complicated when you take into account things said on the internet being difficult to tell what perspective you're coming from.

I guess to me, it matters the intention and the level of respect. And being able to have these conversations is important to me, at a higher level of sophistication than like... twitter dunks :T

[rekishi]

I find it admirable than you can still hold on to twitter

[superborb]

It is fun usually! But nuanced discussion is not its forte

[belleweather]

I feel so seen by this comment -- I worked in Delhi and Hyderabad, and wearing Western clothes as a woman was just completely untenable emotionally. Not only was I encouraged to wear local clothes for cultural reasons, I was encouraged to do it for safety reasons; the "eve teasing" was far less if I met local expectations for female dress. While I didn't adopt the sari for every-day (although I wore it to an occasional formal event where that was appropriate and have my two saris carefully stored in acid-free paper just in case I get the chance again) I did end up with an entire daily-wear wardrobe of kurtas... and then came back to the US and felt like I couldn't/shouldn't wear them outside of the house. Ironically, they stayed boxed up until I moved to the middle east, where they were perfectly acceptable again and it was like re-uniting with old friends.

[rekishi]

Kurta! Thank you, it was 7 in the morning and I was 'late' for my usual start time writing this and was too addled by early morning fog to remember the correct word.

Yes, the safety aspect is certainly also something I failed to consider in my comment as well. It's definitely a factor, in-country.

It's difficult and it will remain difficult and it's something to treat carefully about. I have a colleague who's Indian but with her looks she might as well be from any place in the Levante. When she wears kurtas someone might just as well think she was culturally appropriating who doesn't know her. There's no good solution to this dilemma, or at least I haven't seen one yet. I still hope to see one in my lifetime though.

Thank you for sharing your experience!

[narie]

I did the same in my time working in India, and then yes, they were relegated to homewear only.