cultural appropriation [reviewed]

Change is inevitable as you make mistakes and learn from it. You grow with the changes. This has been painfully sat on my chest for many months. Maybe it’s time to release.

In 2019, I wrote a blog post called “Naming Does Matter”. It was my desperate attempt to alert many problematic Western creations ‘inspired by’ Japanese culture. It got circulated far and wide from my small followers on instagram post at that time, resulting in me receiving lots of demands in my inbox and DM from countless strangers who wanted to discuss. Some people were clearly attempting to diminish my existence as if I needed to prove it. I was called patriot, self righteous and told to go back home. There were also many Japanese diaspora who emailed me to thank me for speaking up and told me that they felt seen. I am particularly glad that I wrote it, if for no other reason than them. 

Despite such responses from the latter, I have been unsettling ever since. Not only because angry and anxious strangers continued to appear in my inbox every time race issue are flagged up in the society, but also because I exist in the online space that seems anyone can create whatever they want and found myself constantly triggered via people tagging me and jumping in to my DM.

I needed further healing.

At the same time, I continued to spend my time with self-interrogation and anti racism work. Then I slowly began to recognise that I made a mistake and lacked a boundary. 

Process of learning

Much of my initial focus was peoples misleading information and disrespecting of our culture. That part still stands with me today. (You can read the original post here.)

However, because I was fixated on the incorrectness and criticised the rampant (more obvious) cultural appropriation, I let myself slide with those using appropriation in a different context. My lack of understanding in Western history and power dynamic in the society has resulted in me referencing white person as an exceptional example of appreciating our culture (despite the fact that they are holding the power from the start and continue to benefit from it) which unfortunately might have caused misdirecting as a false sense of ‘permission’ to some selective readers to do the same.

Firstly I would like to apologise to people who have been speaking about cultural appropriation, especially Black and Brown, Ingenious people and Asian diaspora, for that you might have felt that my original referencing was problematic. I have examined what I realised and would like to share the reflection in the following writing.

There are people who make their own products obsessively depicting our culture that they say “are inspired by”. The information they speak of aren’t exactly ‘incorrect’, they seemed well-studied, presumably from books, internet or own experience of visiting /living our country as expats, but not through their own heritage. In the past I engaged with them, as they happened to be my followers and customers.

Then, I began to pause. Something didn’t feel right.

I questioned myself, why have I got drawn to their work instead of recognising actually this as appropriation. It was a sense of temporarily connection to my culture that I have distanced by living away from my home country, whilst finding the reality of passing down the knowledge, language and culture to my next generation and community sometimes very challenging. The familiar and nostalgic visual idea foolishly comforted me. Little did I know was that I too was so assimilated in the Western society and the space created by this very app. Growing up in Japan and living through the 80s to 90s, I was also influenced by the white ideology via media and Westernised Japan that I did not even question myself. I had to spend quite some time unpacking this.

This is not appreciation

Inspiration is a beautiful and tricky word, isn’t it? It contains good feelings and unknown joy. Yet when inspiration combines with your entitlement, it becomes sticky. When you say you are inspired by someone else’s culture, how far can you appreciate it without taking advantage with your entitlement, assuming that you can do what you want with it?

I began to notice that they continued to create and sell Japan-inspired products and speak of our culture like an expert as if our culture was their own. The more I witnessed, the more I began to feel triggered and depressed. So I gradually stepped away in order to allow myself more peace, by unfollowing, restricting and stopped engagement, whilst trying to mind my own business. But such disconnection seemed to have driven them even further. They started to appear in comment space more frequently than before, flagged in DM and snapped up my work in the shop. I felt trapped and unsafe. I do not owe anyone an explanation or certainly stressful discussion on internet rather than my own sanity. But simply stepping away wasn’t the answer.

Sending nice comments, continuously trying to connect (even clearly aware of disconnection) and buying work from me and fellow Japanese makers might seem to look not harmful or even contributing. But doing so in the back of continuing to make profit off of our culture is actually very problematic. It is economical and emotional power they choose to exercise over me (us), like trying to buy a sort of approval from Japanese person so that they can get away with it. What they are doing is not appreciation of our culture, but in fact manipulation of the power whilst trying to prove that they are the good ones. 

Who is benefitting from the commodification? Was it really about appreciating us and our culture? Or are they just feeding their ego and obsession that they don’t want to let go? In the blog post, I wrote that learning our culture deeper might help you ‘being a bridge’. But remember, a bridge has to connect two sides, allowing mutual respect. If it’s only one way and there’s the power imbalance in place, you are only benefiting yourself, not supporting the origin of the culture (donating from your commodification of someone else’s culture is NOT it), then that is not a healthy bridge to stand. Please don’t misunderstand obsession as a true commitment, especially without acknowledging the power imbalance.

In late 2020, there was an opportunity to listen to the conversation between two Black women discussing children’s books. We all know how little the percentage of Black protagonist featured in books published in UK is, and even more so, many of those books featuring Black character are written by white authors. They highlighted an example of a particular book depicting a Black Africans story whilst not showing white author’s image on it. It was very cheeky or even manipulative, not authentic, especially knowing that such a decision is also backed up by mainly white publishers.

From that conversation, I extended my thoughts on online space such as social media. They are not any different. White people quietly hiding from profile image, using our written language and family names, whilst creating ‘Japanese-inspired’ products with our words, is not only misleading the viewers as if you are a Japanese heritage person but disrespecting those of the heritage. It is not authentic. It is a sneaky tactic to profit over true appreciation of the culture. It is not ok. 

Who get to represent us / present our culture and how? 

Talking about cultural appropriation is a layered complex. I recognise this very much from my unhealed East Asian (or more precisely Japan’s) conditioning. In the past, I emphasised the lack of English language and Japanese people’s politeness in our culture explaining the defencelessness. Whilst it’s still true for me that I don’t have language privilege and find it hard to express it all, I was undervaluing myself and Japanese people, even though we are not monoliths. I realised I did not need to defend my existence by referencing white author or creatives who can explain our culture for us. There are so many Japanese diaspora and heritage people in this world who can and already stand up and speak for ourselves too. They are the ones who I needed to uplift. They are the ones to whom should be passed the mic. I was conditioned and am work in progress to do better. 

When I spoke about cultural appropriation, there were often expectations or even demands to teach what our culture is. Respectfully to some Japanese people who continue to use the online platform to express our culture (and I also occasionally do so), I also believe that we are not here to teach or even prove our cultural connection and identity only to respond to the interest of the West. It is our right to choose how we speak and what to share.

For me, culture is something cultivated within me from growing up, for my family and diaspora friends. It is quite private and I choose not over-share it. Do you know why? Last time I spoke to one of my friends whilst I was sharing my trip to Japan, she was jokingly saying to me, “Be careful, before you know it, it would be the next trend!” Now I actually felt this is quite true. Wabi sabi, furoshiki, shinrinyoku… what’s next? How many words have become the trendy phrase for your capitalist gain?

Questions you may ask

Past years, I received countless questions and opinions. Shouldn’t it be embraced mixing of culture? My Japanese friend said ok. What do you think of the products calling this or that? How far is acceptable? and so forth.

Firstly I can only speak for myself and don’t have all the answers to individual questions. There are always layered nuances in different contexts. I cannot speak on behalf of any experts in specific craftsmanship or the entire Japanese community. But as a Japanese person who lives in the West, I will speak how I feel and for my hurt, especially if your opinion is coming from a place of privilege, where you have never been in the position of witnessing your culture being appropriated constantly.

As I said it before, you may choose to ask me or someone else who are Japanese, remember we are not your tick box and our answer is not your pass. The accountability still sit with you. Please do not use us and your Japanese friend for your accountability. Using us is not mutual respect.

If you are in the position of power and privilege, and want to change the current system of oppression, I’d implore you to change the question itself.

What is my relation to this culture that I am inspired by?

Am I in the position to show my honour to this culture by making such product to sell?

Who is benefitting from this?

Ultimately, why not ask yourself:

How could I start to decolonise my mind?

Imperial Japan colonised neighbour Asian countries. Whilst this is an horrific truth and more so personally much of unlearning due to the lately informed fact that my very own mother being born in Korea during the Japan’s occupation, there is also the truth that Japan was impacted by US after the inhumane atomic war, in the way we upheld white superiority and capitalism today. Two things can be true and our colonised mind can shape us to cause harm to others. Whilst recognising people in Japan do appropriation too, which is also not ok and shouldn’t be encouraged (I talked about this in the original post), my responsibility from asking the same question to myself is not to participate in adding the weight in the systemic oppression. Imperialism and colonialism do not serve anyone. 

I believe this is why it is so important to interrogate yourself and understand how you might be participating in the very thing that you want to dismantle, even not intentionally. Always remember, impact over intention. If causing harm, it has to stop. To be very clear, cultural appropriation is a form of racism. It allows to breed, festers fetishisation, problematic narratives and stereotypes, that can lead to further Asian Hate that have been increasing in the recent years. 

Please be mindful when connecting to someone else’s culture. I agree that culture might evolve with generations and time. But forcing to alter it to suit the Western demands is not. Please do not manipulate or commodify our culture for your profit. Check your own position and privilege before attempting to defend yourselves. If you are consumers, please stop buying from those who appropriate our culture. Instead, please uplift and support us and our culture in an appreciative and authentic manner, so that we can create a better safer community.