#MyCultureIsNotYourCostume
i used to participate in the ‘cultural costume day’ that would happen annually and i would wear a really nice red qi pao to school and i’d walk in thru the school doors beaming until someone would come up 2 me, look me up and down and say loudly, ‘is this how u dress at home. u look funny’
i would look around and get confused. why did this person, who i barely even knew, decide 2 come up to me and tell me that my cultural clothes were weird on me when there were so many white ppl and ppl who were not ethnically chinese wearing the same clothes ? the comments continued n escalated and i honestly lost count of the squinted eyes and ‘ching chongs’ that i saw n heard
it scared me and i was ashamed of my own culture. when the same day came again the next year, i went to school in uniform and ppl asked me ‘aren’t u chinese ? obv not. look at us. we’re so chinese right now’. i heard ppl go up to their friends and tell them that their ‘chinese dress’ looked great on them. ‘where did u get it ?’ ‘chinatown, duh’. these white ppl were being celebrated 4 wearing MY cultural clothing. i realised then that it was ok when they were wearing it, bcus it was quirky n fun; but when i wore it i was being excessively enthusiastic abt my own culture n should ‘tone it down’ a little bit. and when i didn’t participate i was shamed for ‘not being chinese enough’
i haven’t worn a qi pao since, tbh
last yr, when a poc classmate of mine decided to make a video of him ‘imitating chinese ppl’, i was curious as to how he would present chinese ppl. so i watched the video! and i was not surprised to find that the entire video was 100% offensive
so i wrote to him, publicly, on his facebook wall, and the first msg he sent me (within 10 seconds of me posting it) was ‘are you trying to ruin my life :(’
racists are so afraid of being called out. racists are so weak. he reported my post, stopped replying to my personal messages of me demanding a public apology, and got my post removed by getting his friends to report it too
it was hard, tbh. having ppl message u and telling u that ‘he was just having some fun’ and that ‘it was just satire, can’t u take a joke?’ and that ‘he never meant any harm, ur just a confrontational bitch’. i can honestly say that i spent a few days crying. i was fighting a meaningless battle bcus none of these racists were going to back down. they were so convinced that they were right, that it was ok to portray chinese ppl as dull, studious, and rude ppl
after a few days he messaged me again and u know what he said ? he said he’s lived in china so he thought he knew how chinese ppl are like. he said that he’s sorry. but that was it. nothing abt it acknowledged anything i addressed about his content. he was just ‘sorry’
racists r just ‘sorry’ when they r called out. but they don’t care. they rly don’t give a single shit about whether they insult ur culture or not, bcus it’s not their own
they don’t give a shit about the toxic shit they do with ur heritage. bcus it’s become so normal. i know a lot of ppl say that ‘chinese ppl have it so easy as pocs’ but no one has it easy ? did anyone care when the met gala’s theme was ‘china: through the looking glass’ ? no. no one gave a shit. no one gave a shit when coldplay released that piece of shit song ‘princess of china’
stop appropriating our culture. stop stealing our culture. stop normalising the stereotypes that r attached with our culture. stop mixing us up w other east asians in media and popular culture. stop shaming us for being proud bcus no one else is proud of us. they want our clothes and our culture and our language but not us. that’s fucked up
@my fellow chinese ppl: call racists out. make ppl uncomfortable by using the word ‘chink’. wear ur traditional chinese clothes proudly. and most of all, don’t ever feel obligated to explain urself, bcus nothing will ever make u ‘not chinese enough’
janainaart
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