#orentalism

[pintoras]

Emma Ekwall (Swedish, 1838 - 1925): Interior with children at table with Japanese still life (via Stockholms Auktionsverk)

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Heads up: the lunar chronicles has gotten flack for the representation of a pan-Asian country (i.e. incorrect honorifics/names, a Japanese family ruling over all of Asia with no though to how that could relate to Japan's imperialistic). There are some reviews by Asian readers out there talking about, like at diversireads on tumblr.

oh I'm glad you brought that up. it's by no means a perfect series and "the Eastern Commonwealth" is one of it's biggest problems. the author mentioned on her website that she has only been to Asia once, and it was to China for like a week when she was 13. that definitely shows in her writing. eg, surnames first and given names second, mandarin honorifics, the capital is New Beijing (this weird beijing-shanghai-tokyo-seoul conglomerate). she pretty much exclusively includes east Asian countries which is disappointing but tbh not a surprise.

another thing is that within the Eastern Commonwealth they never really name any countries or regions besides the capital. yet the white protagonist in the second book lives in France and even a specific tiny little town?

going back to the pan-asian issue, one of the things that always kills me is that cinder's step/adoptive mother is named linh adri. she's slightly Vietnamese(?)-coded based on her last name, linh. however, the author stated that adri is a Hindi name (I don't mean to say someone's name can't be a language other than their first name but for this example and context, it shouldn't be). see where I'm going with this? it gets worse. so this character, who has two different cultures in her name alone, is described in her very first scene as wearing a kimono. *insert jvn can you believe?* maybe this character is actually mixed vietnamese/Indian/Japanese but I think that's giving the author way too much credit. one could also argue that in the future everyone will be mixed but that's really not an excuse for lazy writing and lack of research.

I'm always torn over these issues between "white people should get used to writing stories other than their own" and "leave poc stories to the people who know them best".

mod i

*I made another post on this a while back that I will link when I get to a computer