bornabitch-allthedaysandnights:

bitchinthenorth: Before people call me some racist white girl, I would first like to make it clear that I’m Chinese. 100% Chinese. I speak decently-fluent Mandarin. I lived in Taiwan for 4 years. I think this qualifies me to make comments about clothing regarding my culture. Also, since I am only Chinese, and it… You are very clearly not understanding what cultural appropriation actually is, or the power imbalances inherent to it. Cultural appropriation is the misrepresentation and/or decontextualization of traditions from marginalized cultures by individuals in relatively privileged groups. It specifically describes the involvement of a harmful/exploitative colonialist/imperialist/racist power imbalance. It reinforces stereotypes, Eurocentric beauty standards, racist colonial/imperial power dynamics, and in many cases can be a form of visual/symbolic dehumanization and is a step in committing genocide against a group of people. You are also conflating cultural diffusion (the spread of traditions or technologies due to trade, migration and intermarriage) which would describe all the examples you describe: paper, bathrobes, silk, tea/coffee, chopsticks with cultural appropriation. They are different processes with vastly different consequences.

Okay, so if cultural diffusion is only through trade, migration, and intermarriage, only Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians, Koreans, Japanese, and Indians can use paper. The rest of you “western” sjws can burn all your fucking paper products because:

中国造纸技术的传播顺序，先为纸张和纸制品，其次才为造纸技术。考古发现证实，早在西汉时，纸就已经传播到朝鲜。大约公元四世纪末，造纸术传入朝鲜和越南。到了7世纪，产自朝鲜半岛的“高丽纸”已经为中国文人所喜用。公元610年，朝鲜僧人昙征将造纸术献与日本摄政王圣德太子，日本人称昙征为纸神。公元9—10世纪，造纸术经丝绸之路传到西域，并由此传入印度，开始出现纸质的佛教经卷。

在公元8世纪751年，唐朝高仙芝与大食国（当时的阿拉伯）爆发怛罗斯战役，战败的唐朝士兵俘虏中有懂得造纸的工匠，造纸术便传入了西方



Source: (x)

Chinese paper making is spread to Korea in the West Han dynasty. At the end of the fourth century, paper making spread to most of Korea and Vietnam. At the eighth century, many scholars loved the “Korean Paper” that was obtained from the Korean peninsula. At the year 610, a Korean monk gifted “paper making” to a Japanese noble, and the Japanese saw the monk as “god of paper”. In the nine and tenth century, paper making was spread through the silk road into India, and from there we see the appearance of paper Buddhist scrolls.

During the year 751, Gao Xianzhi of Tang fought the Caliphate at the Battle of Talas, certain prisoners of war were craftsmen before the draft with the knowledge of paper making, and thereafter, the knowledge of paper making became available to the west.



We all know how “wonderfully” prisoners of wars were treated in the eighth century and especially when the captors wanna get certain information out of them.

1276 年，意大利半岛中部的蒙地法诺地区建起了意大利的第一家生产麻纸的造纸场。此后不久，欧洲人开始改良造纸技术，但直至17世纪，欧洲的造纸技术还只能达到中国宋代的水平。为了解决欧洲纸张质量低劣的问题，法国财政大臣杜尔阁曾希望利用驻北京的耶稣会教士刺探中国的造纸技术



乾隆年间，供职于清廷的法国画师、耶稣会教士蒋友仁将中国的造纸技术画成图寄回了巴黎，中国先进的造纸技术才在欧洲广泛传播开来。

Source: (x)

In 1276, the first paper mill was built in central Italy, and not long after, Europeans started bettering their techniques, however, even until the seventeenth century, paper making in Europe in terms of technique are merely at the Soong Dynasty (960 - 1279) level. To solve the problem of the lack of quality of Europe-made paper, the French Finance Minister had hoped to take advantage of the Jesuits in Beijing to spy on China’s papermaking technology.

During Qianlong’s rule in the Qing dynasty, Jiang Youren, who was a Jesuit employed as a painter in the Chinese courts, made detailed illustrations of the Chinese paper making process and mailed it back to Paris, it was then that the advanced techniques of the Chinese became widely spread in Europe.

So yup, pretty much topnotch spying and theft, none of that nice “trade, migration and intermarriage”. According to your logic, please be morally consistent and kindly stop using paper.







As a last note… bitchinthenorth and I are both Chinese talking about Chinese culture, and she even specifically said she’s only talking about Chinese culture and not speaking for other cultures so… are you Chinese? If not can you like… not talk over us? 囧 like….srsly? Srsly.

We understand the issue also affects Mexicans, African-Americans, and Native Americans and IN NO WHERE did I or bitchinthenorth discount the validity of the issue itself. We are just speaking for our own culture because there’s a little thing called Sinocentrism, and China was fucking imperialistic and making everyone our bitch and shit when white men hasn’t even ventured out of Europe. We fucking assimilated like numerous other ethnicities before it became “uncool” to do so.

If “white culture” is “free game”–even for things like Polish culture and Ukrainian culture, which has no recent involvements in the slave trade or colonization–because of history, Chinese culture is “free game” too by that logic.

Unless you want to make some magical “cultural appropriation eligibility cut off date” where it’s convenient for your argument.

Either way, each culture’s tolerance to what sjws consider “culture theft” is different. You need to respect the fact that we are not a monolith and have different boundaries. Diaspora Chinese may have a differing opinion than that of Native Chinese, but it’s up to us to decide among ourselves.

For example, most native people in China range from “don’t even care” to “love it!” in regards to non-Chinese wearing qipao. However, having grown up with diaspora Chinese as an immigrant, I take the middle ground of believing a qipao shouldn’t be worn “for fun” but it is fine for formal occasions, which is different than the opinion bitchinthenorth holds, that’s a discussion between me and bitchinthenorth and other Chinese people.