Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/26/popcult-with-chinese-characte.html
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Of course the West also ingests and adapts eastern (and other) cultures.
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I’ve never liked the brouhaha about “cultural appropriation.” The world would be a much duller place if people didn’t adopt, adapt, and remix things from other places and cultures. I wonder what Italian food would be like without pasta (from China) and tomatoes and the vast variety of Capiscum peppers (from the Americas)? Not to mention peppers made their way worldwide, and certainly have been popular throughout Asia.
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I dunno. A lot of appropriation examples are very much just a continuation of colonialism. It really matters whether the original culture is being oppressed at the by the culture using the art for instance. So maybe not such a big deal if westerners want to draw Manga but still probably a problem when you consider taking corpses from their burial place for museums or taking/replicating religious statuary without even considering what the original culturedoes with the art.
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I think what a lot of people miss about ‘cultural appropriation’ isn’t that it’s saying ‘don’t do that, it’s not your culture’ it’s that it’s saying ‘don’t do that because you think it’s trendy and have shallow knowledge on it’. Like festival goers wearing feather headdresses, it’s not a silly costume, it’s actual religious/cultural wear.
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But that was so long ago… /s
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Those are very good points, and I think a key thing here is respect. Nobody who practices a religion likes to see their symbols used in a disrespectful manner.
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