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Menu and decor 'reprehensible,' some Kitigan Zibi members say - ‘Indigenous fusion’ restaurant raises concerns about appropriation
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- Published
- Aug 8 2023
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- 1616 words
Thank you for sharing this article, I am fascinated by discussions of cultural appropriation and the many different opinions on when it is and isn't okay. Personally, I have sided for and against cultural appropriation and have been swayed from one side to the other during discussions. I have found that these debates are always nuanced and that the motivations of the appropriator usually lead to the most sensible conclusion.
Parts of the article that stuck out to me:
The way this person has handled the culture being appropriated is not authentic and is not in good taste. The menu for this restaurant contains nachos, chicken wings, pizza, sloppy joe, tacos, hamburgers, and chicken fingers. All of these menu items are named with indigenous references.
Indigenous responses:
Suzette's response to critiques of her situation:
You can do whatever you want. People can write whatever they want about it. People can eat wherever they want. Operating a restaurant is hard and ultimately relies on the goodwill and patronage of the community you operate in.
Suzette Foucault strikes me as an opportunist. They see a market for authentic, indigenous experiences in a time where society has shifted to appreciate these oppressed cultures and support their continued future, both culturally and economically. By marketing their new restaurant in this way, Suzette is capitalizing on this good will.
Edit: small grammar and typo fixes
Holy ever living shit, this is nigh parody levels of offensiveness. It's like an episode of the Simpsons come to life. There are tee pees in the logo! A totem pole in the lobby!
Who approved this business loan! What is even happening!
That's all well and good if you're indigenous, but from this article, no members of the tribe she claims knows of this individual, and the owner even says that she has no real connection.
I agree that this is a touchy subject, but I want to focus on this for a bit:
How would you feel about the chef opening a restaurant to celebrate Canadian indigenous cultures without resorting to such "kitschy" methods? I mean, "White Buffalo Poutine," "Geronimo fries," really? This is clearly an attempt to capitalize on the fetishizing of indigenous peoples, and that's what I take most umbrage with.
Of course I'm a white American man trying to voice my opinion on a ridiculously delicate matter, so maybe I should just respectfully bow out from a topic that I'm just not qualified to comment on.
To an extent, yes. I try to be reasonably aware of the places I eat, and yes I am fully aware of the cultural appropriation of various cultures. Take fonts for instance, every Chinese restaurant font you've ever seen was created by some white guy in California in the 40s, designed fully to encapsulate an idea of fetish faux Orientalism. This is why my favorite Chinese restaurant is a family owned local place that's used their revenue to put their kids through school.
So yeah, it does bother me, and I do keep these things in mind when I dine out. I know I'm not going to save the world singlehandedly or with my family's dining habits, but when I have the choice to order from PF Chang's or a locally owned hole in the wall, I know where I'm going. The same applies to here.
This was a good talk, and I appreciate your time. I had to reconcile with why I feel okay eating here and not there, and you made me reconsider some things.
Why is it okay for some cultures to reappropriate things and not other cultures? What does it mean to be part of a culture in the first place? Why can't I find a Chinese restaurant as good as the one from some shitty small town I left?
I won't be replying for the rest of the evening, but I certainly hope you have a good day. Respectfully bowing out, but also dinner time.
Hey there :) I know you said you won't respond and this isn't even the person you're replying to, but I just....had to thank you anyway. Feel free to ignore :D
So, okay, I'm a Hong Konger who grew up in North America, and one of my family members actually did run a small town American Chinese restaurant to put their kids through university. :) So your comment and thoughtfulness was a small blessing unto me this morning and I wanted to say thanks.
I am actually a little....put off.... by the chop suey / general Zhao / Kung Pao stuff and chopstick font and the fortune cookies etc. A little little. It's what we had/still have to do to survive in small towns. The same way that a Ukrainian restaurant in Hong Kong has to kind of ham up the Serbian elements to make it work.
But I did say a little put off, not downright offended. I love fortune cookies and can eat them by the boxful....since Unicode came along I'm seeing chopstick font less which is awesome, and even American Chinese restaurants can serve whole ducks or chicken or fish these days without other patrons making racist remarks anymore.
And progress is thanks to sensitive and thoughtful "outsiders" like you, willing to try new things and shying away from things that smell exploitative or fetishizing.
It's one thing if a small family puts up pictures of pandas and red lanterns to put their kids through university. They know it's not authentic and they're selling inauthentic tastes and decor to folks who are willing to go a little out of their comfort zone but not too much. When I am travelling abroad I also appreciate local restaurants who are willing to put English on their menus and offers chicken nuggets and fries.....I know I'm being a pampered brat and I appreciate it. People making their food accessible to "guests" is hospitality.
BUT -- It'll be another thing altogether if my kid, who is genetically but not culturally, a Hong Konger, starts to run an "authentic HK restaurant" and calls dishes "721 white sauce chicken" or "Prince Edward gravy train noodles" or "tear gas spicy beef" or puts up a "Lennon Wall" except it's coupons folks can tear off and use.....it would be heart rending to see still bleeding wounds be displayed as a joke and for profit, even if it's from someone genetically one of us.
Anyways. thanks :)
There are authentic and inauthentic restaurants for all of these cultures. An authentic Chinese restaurant in the USA may not perform as well as one that caters to an American palette, and locality + availability of ingredients will always inherently change how authentic a restaurant is. Even then, what type of Chinese cuisine is it representing? Sichuan, Shandong, Cantonese? Who decides the line between authentic and inauthentic?
I can't speak for anecdotal racist décor, but on that topic I'll give you a hypothetical situation and you decide if it's okay:
Someone opens a Native American restaurant that served nachos, pizza, and chicken fingers, named everything after random indigenous terms, and then claimed their mission statement was to unite all native peoples and end segregation*. The indigenous community speaks out to say that this is offensive and instead of justifying their choices, the owner lashes out at everyone instead.
The comparison of Chinese American food to the appropriation of Indigenous cultures and foods in North America is a really poor one. Chinese culture is alive and well in mainland China. There are over 1 billion Chinese people. The fact that a culture across the world has in some ways appropriated and/or fetishized their culture, while possibly indicative of a problem with modern North American practices, is very different than when talking about the same with First Nation / Indigenous cultures in the Americas. There are only something like 70 million indigeonous people alive today in all of the Americas (North & South combined). They have been driven from their homes, they have had their lands and waterways stolen, polluted and destroyed for hundreds of years. Their way of life has literally been taken from them. The buffalo was nearly driven to extinction as an attempted act of genocide by the U.S. government. Naming a dish White Buffalo poutine is more like a Chinese restaurant serving a Nagasaki cocktail like that joke in The Office.
I think it's one thing for a restaurant to be run by native peoples with the backing of a native tribe or band, but for their culture to be used as decor for a random person to decorate their business? I don't think that should be socially acceptable.
As an ethnically Han person, well, in terms of sheer number of non-Han cuisine, we are well behind Vietnamese/Laos/Cambodian people run Pho/Bánh Mì restaurants and Korean people run Korean and/or sushi restaurants. There's a lot of Asian Pacific people run restaurants as well and they're not necessarily Han either. And that's to say nothing at all of Eurasian and Indian places, which I don't know of very many run by Han people
The difference is that Hong Konger run Japanese restaurant is going to have tacky nonsense, sure, but we don't put up pictures of nuked Nagasaki as decor, we don't put starvation related names to ramen dishes, or come try our fire bombed spicy wings etc.
Tacky indigenous restaurant is probably going to generate less offense than something downright disrespectful
Irish pubs in the US do serve "Irish car bombs" though, which will get you slapped if you go to Ireland (outside of the places where they're used to Americans' touristy nonsense).
But I will say there's different ways to criticize and I think the "this is inappropriative and offensive" tack is probably less effective than just mocking people for being tacky and ignorant. Because that's what this is, and calling it out as such gets them in the prideful part of their ego that is sensitive to being told they suck at what they're doing rather than the part that thinks people are just "canceling" them because they're over-sensitive. It doesn't matter if she's technically indigenous by blood if the output of her work is still tacky and ignorant.
Like, if you order an Irish car bomb in Ireland people aren't going to react with pearl clutching about how offensive it is. They'll call you a gobshite and punch you in the mouth, or at least give you a judgey enough glare to make you think they might.
I think a lot of this is like ....hurt feelings and name calling, adult world version.
If I had buck teeth and kids are calling me names, how I respond and how I feel about it can vary depending on how okay I feel about myself. If I felt powerful and strong and proud of myself I could laugh it off. If I feel strong enough (and societially backed) to punch them in the teeth i could do that.
But if I am disadvantaged and my whole family has been disadvantaged for generations and I know the police will come down super hard on me even if I don't do anything....well then I am probably going to feel a lot more hurt from the exact same taunt.
A bleeding open wound reacts to salt very differently than perfect skin under fancy protective gear.
Humour and ridicule might be more effective, I do agree, but I can also see that sometimes people with less privilege are less able to take the more effective stance.
Marginalized members of society have generally not been that shy about resorting to violence when slighted. In fact, the lack of coverage by formal/official methods of dispute resolution means this short of honor-based, aggressive approach to maintaining your dignity and pride tend to be more pronounced, not less. You can't just sue or appeal to authority to back you up.
This has been my big frustration with structuring these narratives about disadvantage and privilege as the only, or primary lens for interpreting these things. I feel like it teaches a form of helplessness and performative victimhood. Some extended family and friends have me review their kids' personal statements for college applications sometimes (mostly Asian and South Asian) and it's gotten to where I'm starting to get viscerally angry and need to check myself every time I see them going back and trying to frame their personal stories with the same clichés about immigrant family, didn't fit in, kids made fun of my lunch, blah blah.
I'm not mad at them. I resent that "the system" has created an incentive structure that encourages these kids to view themselves, primarily, as victims of systems and circumstance rather than masters of their own fates. I am angry that they're being groomed into having a default posture that revolves around appealing to authorities (including censorious online mobs) to address offenses and slights instead of attacking them straight on and learning how to seize and directly exert their own power.
I get especially annoyed that seeing things that are as close to being objectively bad as matters of taste can be get reduced to personal feelings being hurt rather than being called out for why it's stupid. The only reason it gets reduced to a personal slight is because we're taught that our culturally specific norms are irrational or cute little cultural affectations that aren't worth taking seriously, and we reinforce that by casting everything as "my feelings were hurt as a ___" rather than "this thing you're doing is moronic and you look like a fucking idiot doing it." Being a ___ makes you more sensitive to the specific ways in which it's moronic, but thats it.
I sort of see where you're coming from and I can even sort of agree with you but...maybe I have grown up with too much of this kind of thing. Maybe I'm too steeped in the benefits of victimhood mindset currently to see your point clearly. Are you sort of saying, "don't encourage this kind of behaviour" cuz you end up with adults like me who still uses victimhood when convenient? Like, if you don't like something, stop sitting around crying and do something forceful about it instead? Stop relying on pity and perception of helplessness and wait for the powerful (eg mob) to come to your rescue? Something like that?
What about the perspective of "well this group really is totally helpless and public outcry is all they've got" AND "they're consciously using this as in indirect source of power"?
Are you saying that it's less healthy and it could even perpetuate the helplessness and the victimhood and prolong the stereotype etc for a group no longer disadvantaged to keep conveniently using a sob story? To snap out of it and do something else like the rest of us?
But how does one evaluate "when" a group is still disadvantaged due to historic circumstanes, vs they're now equally empowered?
It's a unintentionally disingenuous question, unfortunately. Even if native people are equally empowered in modern society, they are only empowered to be in our society, not in their own. They are not allowed to live the way of life that their people used to, and they likely never will, and probably never could. That will always be a wrong that was done to them.
I think the best we can do is letting those people have a culture of their own, and empowering them to protect their culture in whatever way they see fit. And also allowing them to do that with whatever financial backing we can provide, and without forcing them to conform to our society. Basically constantly being an ally for marginalized people.
More-or-less yeah. I want people to feel proud of who they are and where they come from. I think the perpetual victim narrative encourages people to view themselves through the lens of the WASPy normative power structure instead of asserting the inherent value of their own customs and values.
I understand its utility, but it abdicates the "driver's seat" to whoever is currently in power to continue driving. It's fundamentally just asking to change course, but not asserting that we deserve to drive too. I absolutely think it's unhealthy. It not only prolongs the sense of helplessness as you said, but I think it basically treats others cultures as just permanent others with nothing of note or value for the world more broadly besides random interesting "flavor."
Groups are never equally empowered. There's always some level of material and social advantage/disadvantage between different groups. The key is to just accept some general norms around soliciting input from people with different (and even antagonistic) norms and traditions. You'll never have things be perfectly equal, especially since different culture value various aspects we'd want to equalize differently. But you can at least make sure everyone is treated with a baseline of respect and dignity so they can pursue their own idea of the good in their own way.
That isn’t what the article says. The article says that one random guy from a tribe says that he doesn’t know her.
The article also says:
So there is absolutely no question whatsoever that she is in fact indigenous. I don’t see how any other person has a right to tell her how she can interpret her very own personal history.
Disclaimer I am not indigenous, nor Canadian.
The issue for me with the iconography is not that it is indigenous, but which symbols she chose. The Sun Dance is associated culturally and historically with bravery in battle and with massacres and genocide. I'm trying to imagine how my grandfather would have reacted to Pearl Harbor potatoes on a menu or how any of us would react to 9 11 nachos. Maybe Bataan burgers.
Manitou is the deity and white buffalo is a powerful religious symbol. I've never seen Golgotha or Gethsemane greens on a menu. We don't call our diners Holy Spirit highway meal stop.
There are some pretty cringey establishments that try and cater to Christian fundamentalists this way to be fair. I used to got a Christian gym whose logo was Jesus doing push-ups with a heavy looking cross on his back labeled "The sins of the world."
I feel like this is about as
culturally accuratetactful as a French-themed restaurant that serves Boneaparte boneless chicken bites with a side of Louis' XIV frogleg fries.Honestly, it's mind-boggling, it's like she just picked names from one hat and foods from a second one and said "good enough"!
Why would that be in any way offensive to French people? What does the accuracy matter here?
I just feels so... cheap, I don't know. Or cynical? Like the cultural aspect is just pasted on top for a quick buck.
Accuracy probably isn't the word I was looking for, but my brain's failing to help me put the thought together more coherently.
Edit: Small change to the comment above that better reflects my thoughts now that my brain's coming online.
Those menu item names and their descriptions sure are something else.
I am in no way familiar with First Nations inner or outer workings, but, at a passing glance as an outsider, I can definitely see how this restaurant has become a catalyst for conversation.
And as for myself, if I were to ever mosey into a place with a menu like that, I know I would feel mighty uncomfortable.
Have you ever been to a indigenous owned casino? If so, did you feel uncomfortable with the indigenous iconography that is omnipresent and designed to sell booze and promote slot machines? This is pretty typical for any business on the res, and I don’t see why it isn’t perfectly acceptable for them to monetize their own culture.
I have, yes. And this is markedly different in presentation from what I have personally experienced.
Also, this:
Nothing in my prior comment disagreed with this sentiment.
And if it’s normal, then great. But it’s not to my preferences, so if I encountered it, I’ll just quietly see my way out.
--
Edited to include the reporter's profile on CBC:
What do you think of her statement?
Hey I wanted to join this discussion. I'm no where near an expert, but I think discussions about cultural appropriation are really interesting because they are often blurry. But as a (white, non-indiginous) Ontarian that spends a little time in an Indigenous community some things in your comment and this article stood out to me.
I don't think this is a fair or accurate statement. Googling anything along the lines of "cultural appropriation fusion cuisine" will bring up several articles about this very thing. Here's one article from Dallas about a Taiwanese-American unhappy about this very thing.. FWIW in my anecdotal experience I agree with you about about people I've interacted with happy to see their culture's food becoming popular, it's more the handwaving "no one else" I think is problematic.
Even if we accept your premise that this restaurant is a way to celebrate indigenous cuisine, it would require the food served to actually be of indigenous origin. Most of it is not. I'll highlight two that stood out to me.
1. Using Poutine in many dishes.
Many people associate poutine with Canada. It's probably the first dish that most would say when thinking of Canadian cuisine, but it is most definitely not indigenous. It was invented in Quebec in the 1950s.
2. The Before Sundance Plate
This platter is chicken wings, chicken fingers and poutine. Nothing about this is indigenous cuisine. There is no "fusion" here. The only relationship is that the menu designer decided to associate it with the Sun Dance. How is this dish and the ceremony related? How is this celebrating indigenous cuisine?
So what can we do? What's the point?
You haven't asked this question directly, but I've seen it elsewhere in this comment section, and I think it relates to your statement:
Well, for starters something we can do is listen. When there are indigenous people saying "this makes me uncomfortable" and "I don't think Canadians should be supporting this" we can listen instead of waving our hands and ignoring the problem.
It's true that you, and probably everyone reading this is not even anywhere close to this restauraant and thus couldn't patronize it. But you can listen and read about it, and if someone you know brings it up, you can talk about the issue. You don't need to go on a crusade against this restaurant, fly out to Ottawa and join a protest, but I think saying "what can you do?" Is disenguous.
There's lots you can do - always.
Before I comment I would like to say that this whole thing entirely seems like in poor taste and that I don't know the whole story or even a fraction of a percent of the story. I am also not indigenous nor canadian so my discussion will be more broad at times than this specific story.
With that said I think when people are saying "What can we do?" you are answering what they can do passively, which is listen. I think that having this article posted and people talking about it they have shown that they are listening. But, and the end of the day, listening and talking about it still pretty passive and, by themselves, doesn't accomplish much. Pretty much everyone agrees that it is tacky and best and offensive at worst.
If this article is a call to action then the question is what would people like to be actively done about it? Do they want a law passed? Do they want a boycott? Do they want a protest? Do they want to make the owner "internet famous" in a negative way?
Another question I have: are there any (and if so what percentage) of the indigenous people are ok with it or find parts of it funny? Is this possibly another "latinX" thing where people of other cultures are getting offended on the behalf of someone else's behalf who don't care and/or agree with the "outrage"?
The article quotes one indigenous lady saying
so it seems like even the indigenous people joke about at least some of it amongst themselves. I was also pleasantly suprised that they put in an educational part in the Before Sun Dance Plate which would imply that the whole menu naming convention isn't done out of malice (even though it could be argued that it was done in poor taste).
I ask because there are quite a few "redneck/cracker" themed places around me with food names in the same vein as the restaurant in the article depicting stereotypical redneck/Florida cracker trope/memes. There are places that serve things like "toothless burgers" to mock the sterotypical toothless redneck (with poorly spelled item descriptions), for example. The very people they're denigrating usually find it funny and I'd say the people who are offended just kind of roll their eyes at the most about it. Every now and then a person might write to the newspaper about how offensive it is.
Personally I think the restaurant will fail. Not necessarily over the bruhaha this article is about but because of the quote in the last paragraph. The owner comes across as combative and she either doesn't know how or doesn't want to use "public speak" which, when dealing with the public, can completely alter how you are seen. Saying something like "You suck as a customer, GTFO!" vs "I'm sorry you've had such problematic experiences here, I hope you find satisfaction at other establisments" are vastly different in the eyes of people not directly involved.
I don't think there are that many angles here. The owner of this restaurant is in no way 'qualified' to be acting as an ambassador for this culture that they evidently know little about. I understand that in this case they think they are respectfully promoting this culture, but they are not, and have been told that. This is not very different in my mind from a situation in which someone is profiting off of something unscientific (and potentially harmful!) despite actual knowledgeable people telling them they are wrong and ask them to stop. See people profiting off of astrology, homeopathic medicine, and other pseudoscience. Just because they think they are not doing anything wrong doesn't mean they're not, and not everyone's (random restaurant owner vs the tribe) opinion should be weighted equally.
It makes sense that some cultures "fuss" over appropriation and others don't, for exactly the reasons you say. Not every culture has had the same geosocial status over the past few centuries, and it makes no sense to analyze them today as though they had. I doubt the tribe sees this as promoting a watered down version of their culture, rather, I imagine they see it as so far removed from actually culturally important things as to no longer even be representative.
At the end of the day though, what is there really to be done about it? The woman has a right to open this restaurant, regardless of various opinions on its appropriateness. I suppose they can protest in front of it, but I guess they'll have to decide if they want to spend all that time just to get a restaurant shut down.
I'm really not a fan of this level of thinking. No one is arguing against this person's right to open a restaurant, but there is a level of discourse that should be had.
Really getting levels of "can't do anything, better do nothing" vibes here. Not trying to be inflammatory or insult you personally, but to simply throw up your hands as if to say "Nothing to be done, oh well!" is unnecessary, so I'm curious to see where you were coming from.
I guess it's just personal differences. I see so many issues out there where actions can actually be taken to affect change, it just seems like misdirected energy going after some tiny restaurant that will probably go out of business on its own within a few years. I definitely agree that there's some cringeworthy stuff going on there, but there is nothing I can do but not give her business. And online "discourse" actually gives her publicity, which might actually backfire and push more business her way if certain groups start to see her as "being canceled". You all might end up juicing her profits.
If everyone wants to "continue the discourse" on this then obviously have at it. It just seems like wasted energy to me.
I don’t see it as “can’t do anything”, it’s “shouldn’t do anything”. This woman isn’t doing anything wrong.
I don't think there's anything to be done about it, which, while unfortunate, is probably how things should be.
I do think she's using First Peoples' images questionably, but it's also relevant that she herself has indigenous ancestry. Regardless of whether the tribes like what she's doing, it's a bit harder to simply write her off as a white colonizer misappropriating another group's cultural heritage.
Who gets to decide she isn’t qualified to represent her own personal history? There’s nothing factual at play here like in the examples of astrology or homeopathy.
She can represent her own personal history however she wants. However, here she is claiming to represent a community, and doing so comes with responsibilities to that community. Based on this article I'm lead to believe she hasn't really fulfilled those responsibilities, and thus in my eyes her credibility as an ambassador is diminished.
In any case, there are factual issues at hand here. Whether or not some food or custom has a long history of association with a particular culture is absolutely something that can be verified. One can't just claim that something is relevant to the broader culture if it is not.
I entirely disagree that she owes anything to any community. She’s not “claiming” to represent a community — she is, factually, an indigenous person and she’s entitled to her own interpretation and use of her own history. Her community doesn’t own her.
I also disagree that she has any kind of obligation to make historically accurate indigenous foods. It’s a theme for her restaurant. No rational person is going to her restaurant and coming away with the belief that they were eating traditional and sacred sloppy joes and chicken fingers because these aren’t factual claims she’s making.
I think the particularly striking thing about this case in particular is the menu -- it doesn't seem particularly designed with indigenous food in mind? I see 'bison', 'wild rice', and 'sage' as the primary "indigenous-like" ingredients, but simply tossed into very typical chain restaurant-style dishes.
From my understanding, fusion restaurants at least try to adapt full meals present in other cultures, rather than taking existing Western dishes and simply adding a sprinkling of "exotic" ingredients. (Maybe I'm wrong here, though?)
(I will say, though, that the soups are a different story! They're her own family recipes... I like that! It's personal to her? I think if she had stuck with the personal angle instead of branding it with very generic, stereotypical indigenous iconography and language, she'd have been able to dodge the accusations that she's trying to represent indigenous culture as a whole.)
Overall, when I look at the menu of this restaurant, I see this odd hodgepodge of extremely personal and extremely detached. Simultaneously more authentic and WAY less authentic than your average fusion restaurant? And I don't really know what to do with that! I mostly just think that this woman took a sort of confused, amateurish approach to designing her restaurant. I read naivety into her words? The typos and clear lack of editing, the simple way of looking at the world...
I wish she had done more research into her own ancestry before slapping a bunch of indigenous terms on some basic dishes and mixing them with her own family recipes. I think she would have gotten a lot more goodwill that way? As-is, her menu feels lazy and unthoughtful, and I think that's where most of the frustration stems from when it comes to cultural appropriation as a whole -- people who take on the mantle of a culture without really... Doing the legwork?
I agree that there are a lot of angles, and I think you are right; picking a side is difficult. I would even argue that the notion of being objectively correct just doesn't exist in these debates. Conversations are usually set in the context of countless equally loud voices shouting over each other online. Most of us become overwhelmed and disengage, or just entrench in our thoughts and opinions, disregarding the differing voices entirely.
In 2018 an American teenager wore a Chinese dress to Prom and it made the news due to the clamour it caused, here is an article about it: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kassycho/keziah-daum-prom-qipao-cheongsam
I debated the issue with a loved one. She took the side against cultural appropriation; stating that it was wrong; she is not Chinese and the cheongsam does not belong to her, and she should not wear it. I took the opposing side; this is a celebration of cultural exchange. Fashion and design does not belong to any one person and humanity ultimately benefits from variety. Ultimately, the more I read into it, the more complicated it got and the more I felt like everyone who had an opinion on it was valid - that did not mean the other speakers were invalid.
I think this issue is a good case study in how much nuance is required when judging the character of someone who makes a choice like this, and I can say with confidence that this scenario changed my outlook of not just cultural appropriation in general, but how I make up my mind about judging someone accused of it. Reading the article now, it is still difficult to know who is right and who is wrong, and if someone is wrong, what is so wrong with that?
All that being said, the above is an example of when a fuss being made, or not made, is no big deal. China is a powerhouse and enjoys seeing it's own cultural influence in it's rival superpower. The cheongsam is influenced by western fashion trends. The cheongsam is a symbol of feminism, does that mean it belongs to women? Or only Asian women? Again, there are no wrong answers, the culture is not one of the oppressed, and the motivations of the teenager are benign.
When an indigenous culture with a long history of oppression is exploited in poor and inaccurate taste and then you describe it with delusional self grandour, I would find it hard not to pick my side and feel justified about it.
I'd like to thank the Thai government personally for this one. We're getting a lot more Thai restaurants around here lately thanks to their food diplomacy program, and the newest one is both in delivery range and doesn't pull its punches when the white guy asks for Thai Hot. Or at least, if they do, to a way lesser extent than almost any other Thai joint I've hit up. Their medium is (almost -- there's one or two in the area that do this but are harder to get to from here) everyone else's Thai Hot.
Which is sort of funny to be honest. Thai food is generally fairly mild. Stuff like pad thai is just a mild noodle dish.
I believe that is his point though, that Pad Thai was specifically made for our non-spicy tastes using super beginner level ingredients. :)
But it is also true that authentic Thai cuisine runs the full spectrum of tastes and isn't only spicy
I remember looking up why Thai tea is orange, assuming there was some spice they're adding to the tea. It turns out when they were designing the "standard Thai restaurant menu" they decided they needed a beverage and did some research to find what Americans liked. They came up with "Americans like things to be weird colors and be really sweet" so they decided "let's just put some food coloring and a fuckload of sweetened condensed milk into some iced tea."
They had us dead to rights.
So clever ! :) I love this! I didn't know about the extra orange food dye for Americans part of the story. I always thought it was just red assam tea + yellow tumeric = orange drink, but I guess without it it'd be about the same shade of reddish-brown as HK milk tea (which made UNESCO status!), which is ceylon/pu-er + condensed/evap milk.
Yeah that's what had me curious, I just couldn't imagine what natural substance could get you that vivid shade of orange despite how dark brown tea already is.
I actually honeymooned in Hong Kong just a year before the PRC began severely cracking down. I will miss the HK Milk tea most. We can get the canned Suntory tea here in the States but it's just not the same. I thought in addition to the pu-er there were some floral/botanicals included as well though?
I'm so glad to got to see us before things got super bad. :) Maybe one day we can meet up there again. Let's hope.
re tea leaves, everybody's got their trade secret mixes, a sort of house-blend ......... actually, rando mixes would probably be the most (very recent) historically accurate version : local tea restaurants using whatever rando tea boxes "fell out of the back of the sampan" among the huge shipments of tea coming through our ports to every corner of Asia Paficic / Europe : )
Yeah, I was definitely talking more about curries that are actually supposed to be hot than stuff like pad Thai.
Her statement is correct; she is entitled to open a tacky restaurant that appropriates Indigenous cultures.
And people are entitled to think her restaurant is tacky and say so.
Is it appropriation if she is in fact indigenous?
Regardless of whether she's indigenous, menu text like "This poutine is as sacred as the white buffalo" is not in good taste -- and her menu and website are littered with shit like that. Whether you call it appropriation or not, it's disrespectful and tacky. Regardless of her ancestry, she herself admits she was not raised with a strong connection to indigenous culture and that these references are just based on stories she remembers from her grandparents. So her disrespect for sacred religious elements of this culture are not those of an edgy or transgressive insider trying to make a statement, but rather they're charicature by an outsider no matter what her ancestry is.
What gives these supposed “insiders” the right to dictate how she represents her own history?
She's not just "representing her own history" -- she's representing elements of a religion and culture she does not participate in. It's far from unique to indigenous folks for members of a religion or culture to be sensitive to how they're portrayed. This also isn't some borderline case where others can realistically be accused of being "too sensitive" -- her use of this imagery is disrespectful to a comedic level. I've honestly never seen something this ridiculously disrespectful in such a blasé way towards a given religion and culture -- the only contexts where I've seen things worse have been deliberate attempts to inflame or intimidate people.
The fact that her grandparents were indigenous doesn't make her immune to criticism in her use and portrayal of these cultural elements. Heck, the same criticism would absolutely be levied were she an actual band member who grew up in the culture because of how blatantly disrespectful and near-mockery the use of these religious and cultural elements is in this case. The only thing her being a cultural and religious outsider does exacerbate the issue (and, of course, contribute to why she thought this was remotely okay in the first place).
I totally disagree with all of this, and I would venture that nobody would say a thing if she were, for instance, a Japanese person running a Japanese restaurant filled with servers dressed as ninjas who appeared with a puff of smoke and did magic tricks at the table (care to guess how authentic that is?).
This is strictly a result of people being overly sensitive and trying to dictate to this woman the “right way” for her to be an indigenous person which is flat out one of the most offensive things I have seen.
You're entirely ignoring the religious aspect, which is a huge part of why this is so particularly disrespectful.
But generally it seems that we have irreconcilably different opinions on this one.
I am absolutely ignoring the religious aspect, as completely and utterly inconsequential. I categorically reject the idea that religious institutions of any kind have any right whatsoever to make decisions for non-practitioners (or practitioners) about any aspect of their lives.
I would venture to say the same thing as I am saying about this "indigenous" restaurant: that sounds extremely tacky.
You might think that, but in fact it's awesome.
https://www.ninja-tokyo.jp/
I can think it's tacky, you can think it's awesome. Opinions are not facts.
Since when are outsiders obligated to show respect for the religious elements of others?
Yes, of course one must respect the fact that they're allowed to have whatever beliefs they choose. But there is absolutely no obligation to respect the religious beliefs themselves.
No one is obligated to do anything here. But people from a culture/religion are free to criticize someone who purports to represent them for doing so in a mocking/disrespectful way. Respondong to someone criticizing something like this with "I can do whatever I want!" is missing the point. Of course you can do whatever you want, but people can still criticize you for what you do. Not being obligated to do something tasteful and respectful doesn't mean people can't think you're an asshole when you do something disrespectful and tasteless.
Re-reading your comment above I now see this sentiment in it.
Originally I'd read it as saying that people in general should be respectful of religious beliefs. I would strongly disagree with that, but of course those that hold religious beliefs have every right to think one is an ass.
That's a good question. Most definitions of appropriation mean "taking something for one's own use without the owner's permission." In regards to cultural appropriation, the definitions vary, and I am going to go with this one:
It sounds like the restaurant owner has indigenous grandparents. Does the restaurant owner participate in indigenous culture? Does she claim to have an indigenous identity? From a different restaurant article I found, the owner mentions the struggles of her grandparents, but not so much any of her own in regards to being indigenous. In the article posted to Tildes, the restaurant owner admits that she doesn't visit Kitigan Zibi once her grandparents passed away, and several members of that indigenous community have pointed out they do not see her participating. To me, this implies she does not participate in the indigenous culture she claims to be a part of. That may suggest "appropriation" is an appropriate word to use.
This brings up an interesting question for me: why does it matter? It appears that Kitigan Zibi members who are involved in indigenous communities and cultures, and identify as being indigenous, find her restaurant to be appropriating. Even if we argue with semantics, and claim that this isn't appropriation because the restaurant owner had indigenous grandparents, does that dismiss the tribal members claims that this restaurant is disrespectful to indigenous cultures? I don't think so. The feelings the Kitigan Zibi members have about their culture and religion being used in a mocking manner for profits do not go away simply because "appropriation" may not be the "correct" term to use.
I completely agree. I took some time to write a parent response and also touched on your sentiment towards the end; freedom to do whatever you want cuts both ways.
I think that the reporter has done her homework and has written an excellent article, and gotten some words out of the restaurant owner that portrays her motivation clearly.
I very seriously considered your opinion and I wanted to say that I can appreciate that you are giving the owner the benefit of the doubt.
If we consider that she is very wholeheartedly trying to accurately reflect and promote the culture she is representing herself as, the indigenous communities have wholly rejected it as offensive and inaccurate. When I read indigenous statements in the article, I got the impression that the owner only managed to cobble together a bizarre embodiment of their culture that could only have been the result of ignorant interpretations.
Her response to this critique was to lash out with venom and say she could do whatever she wanted. Personally, if I sincerely believed I was doing the right thing, I would have said something a little more accepting and receptive.
The only menu listing they have in the article was for the Before Sun Dance Platter and I personally thought she was thoughtful in giving a blurb about the Sun Dance in the item description. So, to me at least, she has shown that she is trying to give at least a little education in there.
Have they though? Has the whole indigineous community rejected it all? Is it possible that the author asked 3 people who all happened to be offended? Is it possible that there were there other interviews that weren't added because it didn't fit the narrative the author wanted?
I simply don't agree that such blanket statements like "Everyone says.." or "Nobody does.." are truthful. If I am reading it correctly, even one of the ladies quoted in the article says that the indiginous people have memes and joke about some of this stuff.
To be transparent: I don't know the answers to any of the above questions and I am not intentionally trying to cast doubt here. I do not know if the author has an axe to grind. Hell, I'm not even sure if I would be in the right to be offended on their behalf..