anonymous asked:
is a white person eating Chinese/Indian/Thai food cultural appropriation? Serious question.i think there are a lot of problems with the way food from non-white places / cultures is described in these all-encompassing generalized terms, when it’s often a lot more complicated. i think that all-encompassing terms (“chinese food,” “indian food,” “mexican food,” etc..) are not necessarily absolutely problematic, but they very often can be. because there are a lot of different kinds of food in our cultures and they’re not necessarily so separable (or sometimes, they’re a lot more separated within what you describe as a generalized whole, or something…) and it sucks that you only rely on stereotypes and generalizations to understand our food and customs. i am trying to work on describing certain kinds of foods instead of labels and trying to learn more about the names for foods in cultures that are marginalized
it gets me very irritated when people generalize and say for example “i like indian food” as if it’s this one thing or this one clearly discernible whole. i think south asians have the right to say this and similar things though, because we tend to be aware of the complexities of it more, though this also can get complicated but i will not discuss that in this context. also often i find that we say these things in the west and among white people, because that is the only way white / western people will understand us (not a complete truth, obviously, things vary). but yeah, it gets very annoying…
and it’s like, oh, so i’m supposed to know all the names of and the intricacies of and absolutely LOVE things like (depending on the area in the west, the western / white heritages, etc) scones (as it happens i do love scones a lot, but i digress), various western desserts, white typical thanksgiving and christmas dinners (not talking about POC variations and adaptations here), salads, names of fancy cheeses, various pasta combinations … i mean yeah the privilege of these knowledges varies depending on the hierarchy of ethnicities and cultures and heritages considered white, but, they’re still all above POC cultures and heritages. and it’s like …
oh, so i’m completely ridiculous for not knowing all the western english names for various foods, but you have not even the slightest clue about the many kinds of dal, or what lichees are, or what rasmalai is, or what paneer is, etc, etc …. and that’s totally understandable because you’re white and we’re just exotic natives to you, anyway… and you’re like “i have no idea what this is, but it’s so tasty!!!” or “oh my gosh you eat with your HANDS???!!! so disgusting… we don’t do that here” or “well we call our food a generalized ‘american food’ too” or “ewwww you eat THAT???!!!” not recognizing that the very word America is a white, western generalization for two whole continents, comprised of many many marginalized POC cultures also, both within and outside of the US (yeah, because “american food” is just various kinds of white, western food, right? because POC never count, right? /bitter sarcasm)
also it’s like… so, what kind of indian food do you like? and you do realize that countries in south asia that were mostly brutally divided during partition and through processes of western colonialism and imperialism and continue to have nation-state problems because of this … share a lot in common and so acting like “indian food” is this one thing because certain conceptualizations of india as a nation-state (excluding kashmir, excluding a lot of communities and places and minoritized religions really) can get more privileged recognition in global affairs (this is complicated and also related to hindutva nationalism) …. that this is really messed up in a lot of ways, right? because it really really is.
also, so, what does “indian food” even mean to you? does it mean food that’s more common in certain parts of south india (dosa, idli, sambhar, uttapam … or more hyderabadi food, like biryani?) or east india or west india or northern india (muttar paneer, lots of tandoori stuff, makki ki roti aur sarson ka saag…) (and all of these regions are also overgeneralizations!!!) or is it “all the same” to you and “that exotic spicy stuff”? or what? i mean seriously… [and this is an issue with a LOT of marginalized cultural food politics….]
i don’t think it is always cultural appropriation, but i think it can be and often is. the manner it is done in and the context matter a lot.
Yes. It is not just the eating to consider, but also how you talk about the experience of ordering or cooking the food. That’s important whether you’re someone who eats, or someone who eats and is a well known food blogger or TV chef.
There’s a lot of fluff about the idea of “authenticity”, which I think can verge into sort of kitchen-tourism-imperialism at times. If you look at how the food products in stores and restaurants and marketed, it’s nearly always ike, ‘Oh i can cook this/enter this restaurant and be transported to the misty mountains of Asia because it is just so authentic! how quaint all this is! this is how teh exotic brown people eat!’ - there’s always Othering. It’s not just, ‘This is awesome food from a different place,’ it’s always got to be different in a particularly way.
These food products are marketed specifically in a pseudo-authentic manner, immersing the consumer in a world which ticks all the exotic, homogenising boxes. In South London, I noticed that an ostensibly Northern Thai restaurant, which was specifically furnished with Northern Thai art to evoke specific regions customs of hospitality, did not actually serve a single Northern Thai dish. It was all central or southern Thai. Furthermore, they didn’t have names like ‘Green Curry with Chicken’ but instead used images such as ‘Jade Dragon Pearl Slivers’ - for all the talk of authenticity, this type of thing is never seen in restaurants serving Thai food in Thailand. And it’s actually very likely this restaurant is managed by Thai people. You can try to point the finger at Asians contributing to their own oppression, but you generally do not get very far if you hugely depart from the mysterious Orient stereotype when trying to sell yourself. The expectation is there.
Context is everything. If you want to try different cuisines because they look delicious, go for it. But if you want to try to get an “understanding of our people” and “experience our culture” through eating food then please kindly go away.
A paper I wrote a while back on Disney’s Mulan, vs. the Original Ballad of Mulan. I think it’s pretty cool. Sources are cited at the end of the paper, if you want to read more. I recommend it.
I don’t totally agree with this paper, and it is in ALL CAPS, but some interesting points.
Do you ever wonder why there are no French people on the Internet? Here’s a hint: it’s the same reason none of the artists you really admire are blogging or twittering. They are too busy having a beautiful life making art and living art and fucking one another.
I admire bloggers.
You do know that France is an actual place filled with real people, right? That it exists even when you aren’t imagining a moped speeding by with baguettes sticking out of the back, racing its passengers home so they can roll around in French fuck paint and live sex and hump paintings and smear genitals and moan exuberance?
I don’t even want to know how many of the Moleskine children you’re putting through boarding school, but just keep this prosaic bullshit out of my head, dealzies?
hey OP did you also know people in italy don’t actually spend all their time singing opera while eating pasta and painting ceilings? also germans have foods other than beer, sausages and pretzels and every single english person does not wear a top hat.
plus how ridiculous and arrogant is it to assume that just because the (presumably) mostly english-language websites you visit don’t seem to have many french people that they just aren’t on the internet? like maybe just look at the fact that the french language wiki has over 1 million articles and shut the fuck up with your bad assumptions. go away and leave the internet! maybe then you’ll find magic fantasy “otherland” and can be all “exotic” and “cool” and hurr i need sleep but seriously flip the flip off wanktasm
the word exotic
HATE IT.
And I do not hate too many words because I really, really love words. And most of the words I hate are because I really dislike the way they sound rather than because I hate the meaning or connotation.
But when someone (usually white) refers to a person or place as exotic, I want to scream. When someone says, “what are you going to do after college?’ and I say, “I’m going back to Morocco after 12 years of intensely missing it” and they go, “Morocco? Oh that’s so exotic” I want to cry, scream, punch, slap, bite.
Because what they’re saying is Morocco? That’s so weird. So different. So strange. So alien. So foreign. But exotic encompasses all that, so you don’t have to use so many words.
So let me tell you, Strangers Intent On Estranging Whole Nations, Morocco isn’t that different from anywhere else. People still eat in Morocco. There are still families in Morocco. People go to the bathroom and make love to their spouses and write letters in Morocco. People get angry and get happy and bleed and breathe and like things and dislike things in Morocco. People hate getting up to go to work in Morocco. So what the fuck is so exotic about the place I love?
I mean yeah, of course walking down the street in Tangier wasn’t exactly like walking down the street in Reno, Nevada. Two different sets of experiences, for sure. But walking down the street in Paris was also completely different from walking down the street in Reno and no one ever once said, You stayed in Paris? How exotic!
Because Paris is Just Like Us where who knows what the fuck they’re doing in North Africa. *rollseyes*
In short, the minute someone tells me going back to Morocco is exotic, the minute I know we have fundamentally different viewpoints and we’re unlikely to meet on most of them. Judgmental yes, I know. I’m sorry. It’s just THAT big of a pet peeve.
