This morning I saw a headline that Gordon Ramsay was being criticized for opening an "authentic" Asian restaurant. Headline hyperbole about Mr. Ramsay being "destroyed" aside, the bulk of the criticism seems to focus on two ideas, viz. that only an "Asian" can cook authentic Asian food and the nebulous charge of cultural appropriation. The first argument is easier to understand and rebut, the second is the one I really worry about and which I want to think about a little more. Cooking food is straightforward, it really isn't some mysterious knowledge that is passed on to select initiates in secret ceremonies. One blends various ingredients in the correct proportions, adding them at the correct time and temperature and voila! you get the desired result. To suggest that only an Asian person can cook Asian food is to suggest that Asians are born with some special gene or inherent ability denied to all other ethnic groups. And what is an "Asian" person anyway? In this case, Mr. Ramsay planned a 1930s Tokyo diner - but Asians include everyone from Lebanon and Syria in the west, through Iran, Afghanistan and India to Vietnam, China and Japan in the east. All these nations, China and India especially each have so many different cooking styles within their borders that make the idea of an "Indian" or "Chinese" chef quite irrelevant in deciding the authenticity of their product. Can an Assamese cook craft a Coorgi dish? Would you assume that a Cantonese chef can create true Uighur food? Every region has its own unique style that can be learned, but certainly are not known to their inhabitants by simply breathing the air as they grow up.
However, while I can easily believe that enough people would trust to Mr. Ramsay's culinary skills to deliver them an over priced plate of excellent Japanese food, the idea that he has no right to open such a restaurant is far more insidious and dangerous. In recent years the crime of cultural appropriation has been widely charged against many people, ranging from college kids to, obviously Gordon Ramsay. At its heart is the idea that culture belongs to a certain group of people born withing that specific ethnic and geographic limit and that attempts by any outsider to adopt the same is a racial crime against the first group. There are many things to unpack in here but let's be clear about a couple of things first off: there are certain circumstances that are charged with historic issues (e.g. blackface) that fall outside the realm of just cultural appropriation and may be opposed for wholly different reasons. I do not always agree with those reasons, but can appreciate that the circumstances may make certain people uncomfortable - those fall beyond the purview of this discussion.
I firstly want to examine the concept of cultural appropriation as something wrong. Across history, cultures have met, sometimes clashed and in those confluences, ideas and habits have been shared between the two (or more) groups. The Silk Road carried trade goods from one end of Asia to the other, but along with silks and jade went ideas, clothing, cuisine, furniture, weapons, architecture and so much more; in short, culture. Would cloves and cinnamon be prized in countries far from their origin if the importing nations didn't learn to use it the same way as the original culture? Would the Chinese monopoly on silk have mattered if other nations hadn't learned the benefits of the material and adopted its use? It wasn't a one way street - horses were domesticated in the Steppes (most likely) but the lessons of horse breeding and horse breaking were carried far and wide. Religious ideas were adopted, sometimes through simple sharing, sometimes by force, but shared they were and it is often hard to separate exactly where a certain religious practice originated. Returning to cuisine, I have seen close parallels in the foods of India and Thailand, as well as India and Ethiopia. Pure coincidence, driven by similar geography, or ideas shared through traders. The ubiquitous trousers were used by Celts and Persians alike, but eventually were shared across the world; the popular jeans were created in the US but can one find a single corner of the civilized world without them?
So the idea of cultural sharing is as old as the history of civilization. Yet, when the same idea is repeated today, there are partisans ready to spring to arms to oppose any shared cultural theme. Generally, the charge is leveled against Caucasian people who seek to borrow ideas from Asian or African cultures. There is a level of imperialistic guilt mixed in, for defenders of those cultures recall the days of European colonialism. But the reality is that European colonialism outside the Americas, probably lasted less than two centuries, far less in most areas, which pales in contrast to the age of other empires - the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, to name a few - and the cultural exchanges forced upon their colonies were similar to any prior imperial power. The idea that a young person in the West wearing a kimono or borrowing a pattern for a costume or using a tribal tattoo or wearing a turban or sari (hopefully not both) is an attempt to block cultural exchange, and closing off cultural exchange has never worked well for the culture that locks itself away. Japan, during the Restoration, locked themselves off from any sort of cultural exchange, only to find themselves woefully behind in military power a hundred years later and unable to resist external pressure.
Perhaps the outspoken opponents of appropriation fear that the original culture is being insulted or misused. To this I argue that no culture is so weak that it cannot withstand a few people tying their kimono wrong or draping their sari ungracefully. Besides, what is correct and wrong when it comes to clothing? I would say that wearing one's trousers low around the buttocks is wrong, but that does not stop a large group of people wearing them just so for their own reason. Look back in time and what is "correct" today was as likely as not considered just as wrong a few decades ago. Culture needs change or it stagnates. That change can come from within, or it can come just as easily from without. American slaves, cleaved from their African homelands, mixed their cultures and gave us most of the musical influences of the last half century. To be sure if someone wears a specific ethnic dress to mock that group, or adopts a mannerism for that purpose, it's insulting and may be treated with opprobrium. But that's not cultural appropriation, that's racist behavior and would or should be criticized no matter who is doing it, and whether they are white, brown, black or green (assuming Martians may also get into the act).
And who owns a culture anyway? I saw a suggestion once, related to the whole appropriation argument, that a Caucasian schoolgirl could wear a traditional Chinese costume if she got permission from Chinese friends. That got me thinking: who are these friends who are empowered to give permission on behalf of the whole Chinese culture? Is it three friends or does she need five or five and twenty friends to offer permission before it's okay? Does she need unanimous agreement that it's okay or will an eighty percent agreement suffice? If she gets only three in five friends to agree, can she wear the dress but not style her hair to match? Do these people with cultural veto power have to be "true" Chinese, or will third generation Chinese-Americans suffice? Do the friends have to be from the same region of China as the dress in question, or can they be anywhere in the People's Republic? Do they have to even be Chinese, or will any "Asians" do (in which case the girl already has my permission)?
This rabbit hole just gets even deeper and more twisted as you seek the end. If this girl were anything other than Caucasian and American, would she have to meet the same requirements? What if she were an African American girl? Or, "gasp" Korean? Does a Taiwanese girl have the right to Manchu costumes? Can an Indian wear a Kikuyu tunic? What about a Luo in a Xhosa headdress? Does a West European have the right to learn Chinese or Japanese? Or even Russian? What about a person with a mixed heritage, does it matter with which side they identified before that point?
These questions are all absurd, of course. That is precisely my point - the whole opposition to cultural appropriation is foolish. Do I, as an Indian born and bred, but with no deep roots in Indian culture, have more right to wear an Indian costume than any random person on the street in Denver, Colorado? Do I have a right to wear a costume only by virtue of the particular shade of my skin and certain other outward characteristics? I would, I know, do far less credit to any Indian costume than nearly anyone else (my brother excepted, but in his defense, he does no credit to any costume, regardless of the ethnic origin). Culture grows and flourishes when opened up to wider audiences and outside influences. I have faith that those who would mock a group will fail to truly harm the culture they attack; I'm equally certain, that preventing people from wearing the clothing or symbols of different culture will not stop attacks on the ethnic originators of those symbols. In the end, we are all better when we learn about different cultures. It matters not if we started out simply borrowing an African symbol for a tattoo after a night of drinking, more often than not, it could open us to a wider appreciation of that culture; at worst it leaves us with the Chinese word for soup instead of courage in a place where only our spouses may see it regularly.
As a parting thought, I offer this story about a small bakery I visited in Washington DC. The owner was a music enthusiast and traveled to Senegal to learn about African drumming. He befriended the people of a small village there on his journey. He ended up abandoning his music career and instead returned to DC to open a bakery using grain from the village he'd visited. His friendship and partnerships endure years later and I learned a little about Senegal from his bakery webpage.There are those who would have argued that a white college kid learning West African drumming was cultural appropriation. I would say only that they have not visited West Africa and that they should at least visit Seylou bakery - it just may change their perspective.
However, while I can easily believe that enough people would trust to Mr. Ramsay's culinary skills to deliver them an over priced plate of excellent Japanese food, the idea that he has no right to open such a restaurant is far more insidious and dangerous. In recent years the crime of cultural appropriation has been widely charged against many people, ranging from college kids to, obviously Gordon Ramsay. At its heart is the idea that culture belongs to a certain group of people born withing that specific ethnic and geographic limit and that attempts by any outsider to adopt the same is a racial crime against the first group. There are many things to unpack in here but let's be clear about a couple of things first off: there are certain circumstances that are charged with historic issues (e.g. blackface) that fall outside the realm of just cultural appropriation and may be opposed for wholly different reasons. I do not always agree with those reasons, but can appreciate that the circumstances may make certain people uncomfortable - those fall beyond the purview of this discussion.
I firstly want to examine the concept of cultural appropriation as something wrong. Across history, cultures have met, sometimes clashed and in those confluences, ideas and habits have been shared between the two (or more) groups. The Silk Road carried trade goods from one end of Asia to the other, but along with silks and jade went ideas, clothing, cuisine, furniture, weapons, architecture and so much more; in short, culture. Would cloves and cinnamon be prized in countries far from their origin if the importing nations didn't learn to use it the same way as the original culture? Would the Chinese monopoly on silk have mattered if other nations hadn't learned the benefits of the material and adopted its use? It wasn't a one way street - horses were domesticated in the Steppes (most likely) but the lessons of horse breeding and horse breaking were carried far and wide. Religious ideas were adopted, sometimes through simple sharing, sometimes by force, but shared they were and it is often hard to separate exactly where a certain religious practice originated. Returning to cuisine, I have seen close parallels in the foods of India and Thailand, as well as India and Ethiopia. Pure coincidence, driven by similar geography, or ideas shared through traders. The ubiquitous trousers were used by Celts and Persians alike, but eventually were shared across the world; the popular jeans were created in the US but can one find a single corner of the civilized world without them?
So the idea of cultural sharing is as old as the history of civilization. Yet, when the same idea is repeated today, there are partisans ready to spring to arms to oppose any shared cultural theme. Generally, the charge is leveled against Caucasian people who seek to borrow ideas from Asian or African cultures. There is a level of imperialistic guilt mixed in, for defenders of those cultures recall the days of European colonialism. But the reality is that European colonialism outside the Americas, probably lasted less than two centuries, far less in most areas, which pales in contrast to the age of other empires - the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, to name a few - and the cultural exchanges forced upon their colonies were similar to any prior imperial power. The idea that a young person in the West wearing a kimono or borrowing a pattern for a costume or using a tribal tattoo or wearing a turban or sari (hopefully not both) is an attempt to block cultural exchange, and closing off cultural exchange has never worked well for the culture that locks itself away. Japan, during the Restoration, locked themselves off from any sort of cultural exchange, only to find themselves woefully behind in military power a hundred years later and unable to resist external pressure.
Perhaps the outspoken opponents of appropriation fear that the original culture is being insulted or misused. To this I argue that no culture is so weak that it cannot withstand a few people tying their kimono wrong or draping their sari ungracefully. Besides, what is correct and wrong when it comes to clothing? I would say that wearing one's trousers low around the buttocks is wrong, but that does not stop a large group of people wearing them just so for their own reason. Look back in time and what is "correct" today was as likely as not considered just as wrong a few decades ago. Culture needs change or it stagnates. That change can come from within, or it can come just as easily from without. American slaves, cleaved from their African homelands, mixed their cultures and gave us most of the musical influences of the last half century. To be sure if someone wears a specific ethnic dress to mock that group, or adopts a mannerism for that purpose, it's insulting and may be treated with opprobrium. But that's not cultural appropriation, that's racist behavior and would or should be criticized no matter who is doing it, and whether they are white, brown, black or green (assuming Martians may also get into the act).
And who owns a culture anyway? I saw a suggestion once, related to the whole appropriation argument, that a Caucasian schoolgirl could wear a traditional Chinese costume if she got permission from Chinese friends. That got me thinking: who are these friends who are empowered to give permission on behalf of the whole Chinese culture? Is it three friends or does she need five or five and twenty friends to offer permission before it's okay? Does she need unanimous agreement that it's okay or will an eighty percent agreement suffice? If she gets only three in five friends to agree, can she wear the dress but not style her hair to match? Do these people with cultural veto power have to be "true" Chinese, or will third generation Chinese-Americans suffice? Do the friends have to be from the same region of China as the dress in question, or can they be anywhere in the People's Republic? Do they have to even be Chinese, or will any "Asians" do (in which case the girl already has my permission)?
This rabbit hole just gets even deeper and more twisted as you seek the end. If this girl were anything other than Caucasian and American, would she have to meet the same requirements? What if she were an African American girl? Or, "gasp" Korean? Does a Taiwanese girl have the right to Manchu costumes? Can an Indian wear a Kikuyu tunic? What about a Luo in a Xhosa headdress? Does a West European have the right to learn Chinese or Japanese? Or even Russian? What about a person with a mixed heritage, does it matter with which side they identified before that point?
These questions are all absurd, of course. That is precisely my point - the whole opposition to cultural appropriation is foolish. Do I, as an Indian born and bred, but with no deep roots in Indian culture, have more right to wear an Indian costume than any random person on the street in Denver, Colorado? Do I have a right to wear a costume only by virtue of the particular shade of my skin and certain other outward characteristics? I would, I know, do far less credit to any Indian costume than nearly anyone else (my brother excepted, but in his defense, he does no credit to any costume, regardless of the ethnic origin). Culture grows and flourishes when opened up to wider audiences and outside influences. I have faith that those who would mock a group will fail to truly harm the culture they attack; I'm equally certain, that preventing people from wearing the clothing or symbols of different culture will not stop attacks on the ethnic originators of those symbols. In the end, we are all better when we learn about different cultures. It matters not if we started out simply borrowing an African symbol for a tattoo after a night of drinking, more often than not, it could open us to a wider appreciation of that culture; at worst it leaves us with the Chinese word for soup instead of courage in a place where only our spouses may see it regularly.
As a parting thought, I offer this story about a small bakery I visited in Washington DC. The owner was a music enthusiast and traveled to Senegal to learn about African drumming. He befriended the people of a small village there on his journey. He ended up abandoning his music career and instead returned to DC to open a bakery using grain from the village he'd visited. His friendship and partnerships endure years later and I learned a little about Senegal from his bakery webpage.There are those who would have argued that a white college kid learning West African drumming was cultural appropriation. I would say only that they have not visited West Africa and that they should at least visit Seylou bakery - it just may change their perspective.
