Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by K. A. Pital »

We have a qipao from our China days which we used both inside China and outside.

Never had issues with it.

No idea where all of this shit comes from.

What about the blood-soaked modern textile industry, is it OK to wear shit brands that operate murder factories in Bangladesh, Pakistan, refuse to pay comp to families of the dead and squeeze every bit of life out of people?

The above is OK, but Chinese dress is not?
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Simon_Jester »

TheFeniX wrote: 2018-05-02 12:12pm
Vendetta wrote: 2018-05-02 11:33am It's not dissimilar to the crying about Matt Damon being in Great Wall.

Much was made about it being a "White Saviour" story from people who hadn't seen the film and didn't look particularly deeply into who was making it and so didn't realise it was actually "Cast a Hollywood name to sell our mainstream Chinese movie overseas".
What got me in on this was white people getting offended on behalf of Mexicans for Speedy Gonzales. Is he a racist depiction of a Mexican (or I guess nationalistic)? Pretty much. But I couldn't find a single hispanc action group (or person) that didn't view him as a (one of very very few) extremely positive depictions of a Mexican character even if he's a walking (running, really) stereotype.

Meanwhile, Netflix has a "Lead Latina Actress" category in 2018 where very. single. fucking. show. is "gets into dealing drugs."
I was going to reply to your first paragraph "well, okay, Speedy is a positive Mexican character for the 1960s..." but then I read your last sentence. :P
ray245 wrote: 2018-05-02 03:23pmThere's a level of cultural arrogance among minority-Americans in assuming they are the representative of all those regional cultures as a whole. Being an Asian-American of Japanese descent does not give you the right to speak on behalf of all East Asians or all those of Chinese descent. The cultural discourse in the US between ethnicity is just plain problematic and damaging to the rest of the world.
I should point out that the US is pretty effective at stripping away and undermining the culture of any minority it absorbs. A lot of those minority-Americans are trying very hard to cling to anything they can that provides them with an identity that lets them "push back" against a combination of very ignorant stereotyping and a lack of close connections to their 'mother' culture.

Unsurprisingly, they get a lot of things wrong, and form common cause when and where they can.

I'm not saying this entitles them to act like they have superior knowledge of what "being Asian" means compared to, say, a Chinese person, because that would be stupid. But they do have a reason for trying to forge a pan-Asian identity within the context of their own society, even if it has bad consequences.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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ray245 wrote: 2018-05-02 11:23amPeople from China very much want Americans to adopt more things from Chinese culture. It's a cultural bargaining chip that is beneficial to the various Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese ( and to some extend Singaporean) governments.
That is nothing new - China has been exporting stuff, and by extension their cultural influences, from at least as far back as Ancient Rome. So have other Asian nations.

I think (have not extensively researched this) a lot of the US "cultural appropriation" furor stems from exploitation of Native American cultures, which is very much a problem. But hyphenated Asians are not Native Americans (even if there is a genetic relationship waaaaaaaaaay back in the past), their cultural issues are not the same, and some of this is angry young adults looking for more things to be angry about.

(Check Jeremy Lam's posting history for his comments about people of African origin - they reflect poorly on Mr. Lam)
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-05-02 12:33pmThat said, I honestly don't know if you would get the same reaction from a white person wearing traditional African garb. Certainly there'd be cries of cultural appropriation here and there, but I think African garb or knockoffs thereof have been floating around American culture since the 70s-ish. Dashiki are probably the best known example. Asian garb on the other hand, less so perhaps.
!960's, actually, for things like Dashikis (I still have a few - too worn to wear anymore, thinking of turning them into quilts or some other project. I'd like to get some new ones, they're great for summer wear).

There was an earlier "Asian" fad, more specifically, Japanese, in my parents' generation. This stemmed in part from WWII and the US tendency to adopt stuff from people they've gone to war with (much as the Vietnam veterans help support Vietnamese eateries in the US), and, well, I'm not entirely sure. But my mom was part of it, doing things like taking classes in Japanese flower arranging. There was also a still earlier fad of Ancient Egyptian influences during (roughly) the Art Deco period and another one earlier still of Chinese stuff. Europe has had episodes of Turkish/Middle Eastern style fads.

Nor is this limited to Caucasians - it's no secret that Japanese culture has had heavy Chinese influence, hell, it's in their written language. I've heard that some very Americanized forms of sushi like Calfornia and Philadelphia rolls have crossed the Pacific and are now becoming a bit of a thing back in Japan, and certainly American pop culture has impacted Japanese culture. This sort of thing is nothing new, it's actually perfectly normal human behavior. Hell, it's hominid behavior - there's evidence the later Neanderthals "stole" some weapon-making tech from the invading Cro-Magnons. All humans are mutts and, baring being stuck on an island with no outside contact for thousands of years (see Tasmania) all human cultures are influenced by other human cultures.

Does offensive cultural appropriation exist? Yes. But context is important and finding a pretty dress at a thrift shop and wearing it to prom does not fit the definition of cultural appropriation.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by AniThyng »

It's not just the dress though, there's also complaints about the pose...
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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I have seen pictures with her in the dress. I have not see the photo with the alleged objectionable pose, but my understanding at this point is that she is the only one wearing "Asian dress", and the kids were imitating poses from some sort of on-line video. Until I see that photo I don't think I can comment on it, other than a lot of "poses" and gestures are found multiple cultures and are easily open to misinterpretation. Hence, I won't say anything about it until I see the source photo.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-05-03 08:13am ]I should point out that the US is pretty effective at stripping away and undermining the culture of any minority it absorbs. A lot of those minority-Americans are trying very hard to cling to anything they can that provides them with an identity that lets them "push back" against a combination of very ignorant stereotyping and a lack of close connections to their 'mother' culture.

Unsurprisingly, they get a lot of things wrong, and form common cause when and where they can.

I'm not saying this entitles them to act like they have superior knowledge of what "being Asian" means compared to, say, a Chinese person, because that would be stupid. But they do have a reason for trying to forge a pan-Asian identity within the context of their own society, even if it has bad consequences.
The problem is they are completely incapable of separating the difference between an American discourse with a global discourse. Their approach is extremely American-centric, and showcase their lack of willingness to learn about the "cultures" they cherish.
Broomstick wrote: 2018-05-03 09:53am That is nothing new - China has been exporting stuff, and by extension their cultural influences, from at least as far back as Ancient Rome. So have other Asian nations.

I think (have not extensively researched this) a lot of the US "cultural appropriation" furor stems from exploitation of Native American cultures, which is very much a problem. But hyphenated Asians are not Native Americans (even if there is a genetic relationship waaaaaaaaaay back in the past), their cultural issues are not the same, and some of this is angry young adults looking for more things to be angry about.

(Check Jeremy Lam's posting history for his comments about people of African origin - they reflect poorly on Mr. Lam)
The problem is idiots like Lam are poisoning the discourse. I have an issue with people exporting cultural discourse of another culture onto their own, just because they see themselves as a minority.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Broomstick wrote: 2018-05-03 10:48am I have seen pictures with her in the dress. I have not see the photo with the alleged objectionable pose, but my understanding at this point is that she is the only one wearing "Asian dress", and the kids were imitating poses from some sort of on-line video. Until I see that photo I don't think I can comment on it, other than a lot of "poses" and gestures are found multiple cultures and are easily open to misinterpretation. Hence, I won't say anything about it until I see the source photo.
link
The controversial pic is the middle one on the right. I have no idea what hand pose those guys are supposed to be in, aside from some vague dance move. The girls have their hands sort of like what you expect when you bow in certain cultures (think martial arts movie where you put a fist to an open palm), but that's a bit of a stretch to attribute it to Asian culture.

BTW, what comments of Mr Lam in regards to Africans are you referring to? I have never heard of this guy and I have no idea what his posting history is like.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Bob the Gunslinger »

They could be praying, or in the middle of the hand jive associated with Pat Benetar's Heartbreaker (as performed a Capella). There are so many different reasons to push palms together that I have trouble believing that they are all mocking the one culture that produced one dress on one member of their group.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Hell, I would have guessed "India" for that palms together pose. And the boys sure as hell aren't doing anything "Asian", I would think "US urban black" for their hand gestures. Boy, someone was really reaching there.
mr friendly guy wrote: 2018-05-03 11:01amBTW, what comments of Mr Lam in regards to Africans are you referring to? I have never heard of this guy and I have no idea what his posting history is like.
Apparently he's not shy about using the "n-word" which as we all know is such a taboo in the US that I have never yet spelled it out fully on this forum despite my lack of shyness for any other word in the American language. I will have to dig up some links as I encounter some of his shit in passing and also repeated by others, but let's just say he displays contempt for pretty much everyone and not just white girls in Chinese dresses.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Vendetta wrote: 2018-05-02 08:18amIt can often seem like a sort of well meaning racism, asserting that cultures must always be pure and separate and unsullied by foreign hands.
This.

I'm usually pretty sympathetic to social justice activists, but the whole cultural appropriation thing... I can understand the good intentions behind it, and yes there are problems where someone engages in a disrespectful/stereotypical imitation of someone else's culture, but the way it often seems to be applied, that borrowing any idea or tradition from another culture is discriminatory and wrong... that's just saying that every race and culture should stay in its own little isolationist box. That's hostile to freedom of expression, and its contrary to how the world has always worked. Cultures have always exchanged ideas and intermingled, and that is a huge part of how human societies have grown and changed over time. I'd bet that every culture contains elements of various other cultures- cultures are not "pure" unchanging isolated sects, thank God.

I suppose in large part its a reaction to how dominant Western culture has become- other groups feel that they're being erased and want to preserve their identity. Which is understandable, but as the OP noted, I think this approach is only going to make that worse.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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So essentially a few internet people get outraged at something they are regularly outraged by.

Here's a thing: context. What are qipao originally for? As far as I can figure out, it's... a dress. For women. That has no special or unique usage. It's not like a kimono for Japanese that has ritual usage and significance. There is a women's liberation connotation, but that seems more closely tied to politics of its original region (if I understand this right, it was an expression of certain political sympathies) as it seems the dress eventually became wide-spread and popular enough that nearly everyone wore one.

So a "white" woman wore one. As a dress. As it was intended. If fashion is a statement, her's was "qipao's are cool!" as far as I can tell. What is wrong with that statement again?
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Because I guess the Chinese invented tight fitting dresses. And now Chinese Americans own the concept. Sure, the color scheme combination would even let the most ignorant westerner define it as at least "Asian," which is almost certainly a side effect of Hollywood. But, to me at least, this is as moronic as someone complaining about a Chinese girl wearing a Southern Belle Dress to one of their dances. Even though they are easily identifiable, no one owns the idea of "frilly, large base dresses."

Maybe if she was wearing something like a Japanese Miko, but I don't recall the Japanese having too much of a stick up their ass about religion. Possibly if you were intentionally disparaging it or something.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Zixinus wrote: 2018-05-03 04:45pm Here's a thing: context. What are qipao originally for? As far as I can figure out, it's... a dress. For women. That has no special or unique usage. It's not like a kimono for Japanese that has ritual usage and significance. There is a women's liberation connotation, but that seems more closely tied to politics of its original region (if I understand this right, it was an expression of certain political sympathies) as it seems the dress eventually became wide-spread and popular enough that nearly everyone wore one.
Kimono don't have ritual significance, they're just formal wear that's used for formal occasions and were largely abandoned in day to day life because they're inconvenient and expensive.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Vendetta wrote: 2018-05-03 05:54pm
Zixinus wrote: 2018-05-03 04:45pm Here's a thing: context. What are qipao originally for? As far as I can figure out, it's... a dress. For women. That has no special or unique usage. It's not like a kimono for Japanese that has ritual usage and significance. There is a women's liberation connotation, but that seems more closely tied to politics of its original region (if I understand this right, it was an expression of certain political sympathies) as it seems the dress eventually became wide-spread and popular enough that nearly everyone wore one.
Kimono don't have ritual significance, they're just formal wear that's used for formal occasions and were largely abandoned in day to day life because they're inconvenient and expensive.
This is true of most cultural formal wear as I understand it, apart from garb specifically worn in a religious context such as Orthodox priestly robes. Certainly a Nigerian baban riga is more or less equivalent to black tie; but how many people actually wear black tie on a regular basis, unless your name is Bond?

It's all fancy wear to show people that you have a lot of money and you're going to an important occasion. That's about it, in pretty much any culture. There are a few where more significance is associated with clothing (Native American comes to mind) but usually even there it's mainly *specific* garments that receive said significance, such as Ghost Dance shirts, or it's from the nature of that culture's traditional beliefs where practically everything has some sort of significance for whatever reason.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-05-03 04:30pm This.

I'm usually pretty sympathetic to social justice activists, but the whole cultural appropriation thing... I can understand the good intentions behind it, and yes there are problems where someone engages in a disrespectful/stereotypical imitation of someone else's culture, but the way it often seems to be applied, that borrowing any idea or tradition from another culture is discriminatory and wrong... that's just saying that every race and culture should stay in its own little isolationist box. That's hostile to freedom of expression, and its contrary to how the world has always worked. Cultures have always exchanged ideas and intermingled, and that is a huge part of how human societies have grown and changed over time. I'd bet that every culture contains elements of various other cultures- cultures are not "pure" unchanging isolated sects, thank God.

I suppose in large part its a reaction to how dominant Western culture has become- other groups feel that they're being erased and want to preserve their identity. Which is understandable, but as the OP noted, I think this approach is only going to make that worse.
And the problem is, idiots like him can become the representative of social justice activists in an age of social media. People will jump upon this to attack the rest of the social justice activists. Anyone can make headline news if they are outraged enough on Twitter and find offense at everything.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

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Vendetta wrote: 2018-05-03 05:54pm
Zixinus wrote: 2018-05-03 04:45pm Here's a thing: context. What are qipao originally for? As far as I can figure out, it's... a dress. For women. That has no special or unique usage. It's not like a kimono for Japanese that has ritual usage and significance. There is a women's liberation connotation, but that seems more closely tied to politics of its original region (if I understand this right, it was an expression of certain political sympathies) as it seems the dress eventually became wide-spread and popular enough that nearly everyone wore one.
Kimono don't have ritual significance, they're just formal wear that's used for formal occasions and were largely abandoned in day to day life because they're inconvenient and expensive.
Women's formal kimonos are also very restrictive of movement and impractical for many every day activities. A very wealthy or noble woman might have worn them a lot in the past, but for women who actually had to do things for a living a looser, less formal version was worn, with some name to distinguish them from the more formal kimono that I can't remember at the moment.

Men's kimonos are less restrictive of movement then women's kimonos. Even so, there's a distinction between full formal and the informal.

In fact, the full formal kimono does have great cultural significance in Japan, with all sorts of flourishes having to do with the styling of the sleeves, the fabrics, the patterns/images/textures and so forth, but given the expense of full formal kimonos I doubt you'll find many at US thrift stores to be picked up for proms by high school students, and even if so, they'd be awful constrictive and limiting in things like dancing. In contrast to the qipao, which was designed and intended as something that could be daily wear for the average woman, in other words, NOT freighted with great cultural and ritual significance, if anything, the exact opposite, and allowing for a large range of movement.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Soontir C'boath »

I think Ray needs to take a moment and realize that Americans in general don't necessarily give a fuck what everyone else thinks and that can include insert country-Americans. I doubt they give a fuck what somebody like Ray thinks lol.

Anyway, I can see why the gesture may be racist, but I personally give this one a pass. As I said, if we are to spread our culture, it has to be on our terms. So someone who seemingly did it off the cuff can seem rather offensive. So Ray, shut the fuck up already and aren't you from Singapore anyway? You're not here in contact with people in a more consistent in your face basis who thinks making fun of your culture is being a cool pal and acceptable thing to do.

So do we necessarily speak for people in China? No, we speak for ourselves who have to live through this shit.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by ray245 »

Soontir C'boath wrote: 2018-05-03 09:20pm I think Ray needs to take a moment and realize that Americans in general don't necessarily give a fuck what everyone else thinks and that can include insert country-Americans. I doubt they give a fuck what somebody like Ray thinks lol.

Anyway, I can see why the gesture may be racist, but I personally give this one a pass. As I said, if we are to spread our culture, it has to be on our terms. So someone who seemingly did it off the cuff can seem rather offensive. So Ray, shut the fuck up already and aren't you from Singapore anyway? You're not here in contact with people in a more consistent in your face basis who thinks making fun of your culture is being a cool pal and acceptable thing to do.

So do we necessarily speak for people in China? No, we speak for ourselves who have to live through this shit.
So what? That does not allow you to have a right to define what's culturally appropriate and what's not. Cultural clothing should not be restricted to an ethnic minority. Otherwise, you'll enforce existing cultural norms and allow "western" clothing to be the only acceptable cross-cultural clothing.

In other words, it's exclusivist and only helps to entrench the position of minorities. Hell, the qipao was basically "appropriated" from Manchu cultural clothing by Han Chinese. Unless you are a Manchu-Chinese-American, you don't really have much of a floor to stand on if you are a Han-Chinese-American.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Soontir C'boath »

Would your position then be that we Chinese, Japanese, etc wrongly appropriated (or for that matter forced to wear) the western business suit and not that because it was seen as a good and proper thing to wear?

As I said, it should be on our terms and if it is seen and felt as something that is served only to make fun of us, then it is wrong because it's not going to be something that will necessarily be seen as being COOL to do. Frankly, at the end of the day, you and I were not there personally and even the Twitter user who blast it to begin with. We don't know exactly how it went down at the prom to judge EITHER WAY which is why I'm giving this a pass and why I'm telling you to shut up (and also you repeating ad nauseous is getting annoying.)

Ha, I like how it autocorrect to nauseous instead of nauseam, but that's how I am starting to feel too.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Soontir C'boath »

Let me rephrase that, if it is only served to make fun of us, then it is basically a one time thing. A joke to be made fun of and discarded until next time they want to rub it in our faces. It's not a situation where someone is going to take seriously and think it's cool to wear on a regular basis to make other people think it's a trend to catch on.

Now prom is an important day for high school kids and having a wonderful and beautiful dress is tremendously important to a young lady so I find it unlikely she meant any offense. She does look wonderful in it. As for the gesture, maybe they didn't know any better and meant well or they were actual dicks talking shit before and after the photo. Whatever, we weren't there, but as I said, I give a pass and that guy on Twitter should have as well.

Anyway, as a Chinese/Taiwanese American, you don't get to tell me what I write on my social media account either and I'm not going to note that I only speak for ABCs and treat myself or any other of us as second class Chinese either. Surgery aside, I don't get to take off this skin however Americanized I may be. Plus, China doesn't have access to Twitter or Facebook anyway. lol
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
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Soontir C'boath
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Soontir C'boath »

I'm pretty livid about this so let me post this and you can fling whatever shit you want at me, I don't care. This needs to be said. My father was born in China and moved as a baby to Taiwan after the Civil War. My mother is from Taiwan and her lineage came from China as well. If you really want a go at it. I'm going to assume it's highly likely that I'm more Chinese than your motherfucking Singaporean ass. So don't act like you speak for mainland China anymore than I or the rest of us do.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by AniThyng »

Soontir C'boath wrote: 2018-05-04 12:07am I'm pretty livid about this so let me post this and you can fling whatever shit you want at me, I don't care. This needs to be said. My father was born in China and moved as a baby to Taiwan after the Civil War. My mother is from Taiwan and her lineage came from China as well. If you really want a go at it. I'm going to assume it's highly likely that I'm more Chinese than your motherfucking Singaporean ass. So don't act like you speak for mainland China anymore than I or the rest of us do.
Would you say there's truth to the matter that it can be very hard for Asians visiting the US as a tourist or business traveler ( and particularly in a tech industry bubble) to understand the kind of racism Asian Americans face daily? In my limited time in the US and Australia I think the closest I got to racism to my face was curiosity over how my English was good, which I gather is a sore point for many.
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by mr friendly guy »

Funny thing is, China (or at least organisations in it) are keen to promote the qipao. Obviously culturally appropriating keyboard warriors don't realise this.

Second point, its much harder to search for the relevant articles about china promoting the wearing of the qipao because a simple google search gets flooded with this particular story of the Utah girl wearing a qipao to the prom. Ugggh. But change the search parameters a little and you can find the articles, although I couldn't find the specific one I remembered from a few years ago.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017 ... 518556.htm
Home / China / Society
Women show off the beauty of Chinese qipao
By CANG WEI in Nanjing and TANG YAOCHANG in Hangzhou | China Daily | Updated: 2017-05-26 21:34
Note the date is May of last year.
Thousands of women from many countries wore qipao, a traditional Chinese women's dress, in fashion shows and on the streets of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Friday.
Look at the non Chinese women wearing the qipao in the link.
"Qipao remind me of China and the beauty of Chinese women," said Mathilde Blaschyk, a French woman who has been living in China for six years.
Chinese don't care that a French woman is supposedly "culturally appropriating" the qipao.


There is even a Federation for the promotion of wearing qipao (link below)


http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0123/c90000-9418912.html (jan 2018)
World Federation of Qipao recently opened its German branch in Dusseldorf to spread Qipao, or cheongsam, a traditional dress for Chinese women, Chinanews.com reported on Jan. 23.

A representative from the Chinese Consulate-General in Dusseldorf (Germany) attended the inauguration ceremony, saying the newly-established German branch will contribute to the culture and people-to-people exchanges between two countries.

<snip>

World Federation of Qipao was established in June 2015 by Qipao lovers and folk art enthusiasts. The organization aims to introduce Qipao to countries around the world and spread traditional Chinese folk culture.

Now, the federation has set up chapters in St. Louis, Boston, and other cities in the US.
This "controversy" is free publicity for those Chinese organisations that want to promote the qipao. If they play their cards right, they should invite this girl over to try on other qipaos. Especially since the Federation already has chapters in the US.
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Soontir C'boath
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Re: Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Post by Soontir C'boath »

Well if they can turn this into a positive be my guest. I don't want white people afraid to wear it because someone decided to get offended right off the bat.
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AniThyng

I suppose it depends on where you go, but I would not be surprised if you go somewhere that is predominately white, you will encounter it. I can only really speak for NYC which generally has more problems with racists involving Jews, Hispanics, and Muslims. They are the focus now so to speak and plus Asians tend to get a pass. Also keep in mind, I am an introvert so my encounters with people is severely limited. But even so, I have met people who made fun of the accent and did the teeth and eye shit. Or kept thinking I was from a different Asian country. These assholes tend to be from New Jersey or Long Island where white suburbia reign I find. Or a white boss of my who thought I and my fellow Hispanic and black managers stole money from the safe rather than the white guy who counts the money no less before he deposits it all at the bank. But guess who gets interrogated? Us color folk. (turned out it was the security guard that they had to catch on camera, who must've figured out the pin). Or even a good close liberal friend who would use the Asian drivers are shit, when frankly a bunch of American drivers are shit themselves so why single us the fuck out? Or another friend who said I can't be a real Chinese person because I didn't have the stereotypical accent they hear on TV.

And then of course like a lot of racism, it's not necessarily upfront. It can be subtle which blacks certainly endure constantly. New Yorkers have learned that it's wrong to say racist shit, but they'll say it when you're not around. Or they'll do things for others that they wouldn't do for you.

So unless you're actively trying to speak with a random person on the streets or whatever who's pretty blatant about it, I'd say chances are low tourists would encounter it or know they faced it.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
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