I never really understood the concept of cultural appropriation. I thought it was a little far-fetched. Then I learned about “Israeli” cuisine and I immediately got it.
Tsai Ing-Wen is doing an offensive appropriation of the traditional Anglo practice of pretending to be native.
I wanted to check out Jingle Bells in Hindi because of this
You know, it’s funny, I actually really enjoy seeing foreign interpretations of American culture. Games like Metal Wolf Chaos, for example. It’s kind of fascinating to see yourself through someone else’s eyes.
Of course, I absolutely understand how someone whose culture is sidelined and commodified to the point that it effectively gets overshadowed by a caricature of itself would feel differently. Just one more reason to say fuck imperialism and fuck capitalism.
I think it’s also easy to see when you’re familiar with some original thing that’s been appropriated across cultural boundaries, the appropriated thing becomes more ubiquitous than the original, and people from the other culture don’t realize where it came from. It doesn’t have to be in bad taste for people to find it grating.
Hallowe’en is like this. It’s Irish, but then Americanised Hallowe’en is pushing in.
One of my chuddiest blood relatives, a lanyard-wearing middle manager, has a deep fixation on his coworkers “speaking foreign gibberish” around him. I don’t talk or hang around him anymore for good reason, but when I did, almost every conversation was about his most recent transcendent wine tasting experience, or his latest authentic foreign vacation where an authentic rug merchant sold him an authentic exotic rug while authentically haggling with him while offering him authentic homemade tea in his authentic quaint foreign dwelling, or him being really mad at his subordinates for “speaking foreign gibberish” in a way that makes him feel like they’re talking about him… which maybe they are because he’s a piece of shit.
in my experience people are happy you try and learn their language (unless they’re Icelandic, Icelandic people often feel that the language is so small outside influence would destroy it)
My first encounter with the concept of cultural appropriation (without knowing the word at the time) was when I saw my boomer Chinese dad get mad at the fact that there was unlicensed Walmart(a mall that decided to name itself Walmart for whatever reason) in China that had a KFC inside(inauthentic appropriation of burgerland culture) and not Mcdonald’s (authentic).
