Cultural Appropriation of Asian Fashion

Cultural appropriation. A complex topic. But I'll give you this definition from dictionary.com.

Cultural appropriation: Cultural appropriation is the act of adopting elements of an outside, often minority culture, including knowledge, practices, and symbols, without understanding or respecting the original culture and context.

What got me started on this, you ask? Well, I was watching season 3, episode 10 of Boy Meets World. In this episode everyone is going out to celebrate New Year's Eve. Topanga shows up at Cory's house and even though she has a jacket on over her outfit, I can immediately tell it's an Asian outfit. It looks like the kinds of things people around me would wear for Chinese New Year. It has the specific collar and the rope button clasp things. And the material is very specific too. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but to me it's very clearly Chinese/Asian influenced. She wears this outfit the whole episode and that is all I can think of. And I ask myself, why? Why did they pick this to put her in? Will they address it? Will someone make a dumb comment about what she's wearing? But it all just goes on as normal (as normal as a 90s sitcom would be). And on the subway, she takes off her jacket and the outfit is seen in all it's glory. And yes, I am still confused. Is this offensive? Should I be angry?

(Picture from Boy Meets World below)

In the past few years, I have been clocking more and more of these kinds of cultural appropriation things, mainly in reference to fashion. In 2018, there was a whole thing on Twitter about non-Asian girls wearing cheongsams and Chinese dresses to prom. And also doing that squat prayer hand pose while wearing them, which made it even worse. I personally saw this as cultural appropriation. Around this time, I had a conversation with a family member about it because I was wondering what they thought, they didn't think anything was that wrong with it, and they asked me why I thought it was so bad. So now I ask myself if the fashion is really cultural appropriation and if it's really a problem. There is a difference between yellow face and wearing Asian clothing to try to imitate Asians, and just wearing it. I still don't think it's ok to be wearing it and not knowing what it is or where it comes from. There is also a difference between big chain stores like Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters selling Asian inspired clothing and trying to make it mainstream, and actually having something from Chinatown or from a dance or a wedding etc. But to go back to the Boy Meets World example, she's just wearing it. She isn't trying to be Asian or anything like that. So then is it still bad? I think so. It hits me in the gut and sends up red flags in my brain. It's taking from a minority culture and putting it on a white body or a popular non-Asian body and making it "cool". But of course, if you talked to other people, other Asian people, they might not think it's bad at all.

Images of traditional Chinese outfits.

But let's take a look at pop music/culture, there have been a chunk of celebrities who have been accused of Asian cultural appropriation. Two examples, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry.

Nicki Minaj did a song called "Chun-Li" based on video game Street Fighter. The photo below is from her SNL performance in 2018. You can go and Google that to read more about it and make up your own opinions, but from a quick read, what I've gathered is that this performance is offensive because it feeds into stereotypes (via costuming and fetishization of Asian women), as well as these costumes appearing to be a mix of Asianness, particularly Chinese and Japanese. The performance starts with her in a Kimono (Japanese), which she takes off to reveal this black and gold outfit which looks half cheongsam (Chinese) and half samurai armour (Japanese)?

Then we have geisha Katy Perry. An American Music Awards performance from 2013. Again, in some other articles, this performance has been labelled as culturally confusing because there is a mix of Japanese and Chinese elements. Y'all, Japanese and Chinese are not the same. Anyway, I'm sure you can find many many other things regarding cultural appropriation from pop stars and other celebrities.

Then, this all reminded me of something I came across this year. Around Halloween, I saw some Forever 21 type Asian clothing items on the Halloween rack at a thrift store near me. This has been said many many times but SOMEONE'S CULTURE IS NOT A COSTUME. Yet, somehow, it is still constantly seen in Halloween stores. The thoughts about Halloween and cultural appropriation also make me think about Disney characters, because if you dress up as Pocahontas or Mulan, is it cultural appropriation? This is mainly just in terms of kids costumes because I do think it's terrible if an adult does it because yeah, it's cultural appropriation. But if an adult lets their kid do it, is it still bad? I kind of think so. But I also want kids to love Mulan so... I don't know. None of it is that clear cut. These are just some of my thoughts and things I'm trying to figure out for myself and pop into people's awareness.