[When the furor reached Asia, though, many seemed to be scratching their heads. Far from being critical of Ms. Daum, who is not Chinese, many people in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan proclaimed her choice of the traditional high-necked dress as a victory for Chinese culture.]
By Amy Qin
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Women
in Liupanshui, China, wearing the traditional Chinese dress known as
cheongsam
or qipao. Credit VCG, via Getty Images
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TAIPEI,
Taiwan — When Keziah Daum
wore a Chinese-style dress to her high school prom in Utah, it set off an
uproar — but not because of its tight fit or thigh-high slit.
After Ms. Daum, 18, shared pictures on social
media of her prom night, a Twitter user named Jeremy Lam hotly responded in a
post that has been retweeted nearly 42,000 times.
“My culture is NOT” your prom dress, he
wrote, adding profanity for effect.
“I’m proud of my culture,” he wrote in
another post. “For it to simply be subject to American consumerism and cater to
a white audience, is parallel to colonial ideology.”
Other Twitter users who described themselves
as Asian-American seized on Ms. Daum’s dress — a form-fitting red cheongsam
(also known as a qipao) with black and gold ornamental designs — as an example
of cultural appropriation, a sign of disrespect and exploitation.
“This isn’t ok,” wrote someone with the user
name Jeannie. “I wouldn’t wear traditional Korean, Japanese or any other
traditional dress and I’m Asian. I wouldn’t wear traditional Irish or Swedish
or Greek dress either. There’s a lot of history behind these clothes. Sad.”
When the furor reached Asia, though, many
seemed to be scratching their heads. Far from being critical of Ms. Daum, who
is not Chinese, many people in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan proclaimed
her choice of the traditional high-necked dress as a victory for Chinese
culture.
“I am very proud to have our culture
recognized by people in other countries,” said someone called Snail Trail,
commenting on a post of the Utah episode by a popular account on WeChat, the
messaging and social media platform, that had been read more than 100,000 times.
“It’s ridiculous to criticize this as
cultural appropriation,” Zhou Yijun, a Hong Kong-based cultural commentator,
said in a telephone interview. “From the perspective of a Chinese person, if a
foreign woman wears a qipao and thinks she looks pretty, then why shouldn’t she
wear it?”
If anything, the uproar surrounding Ms.
Daum’s dress prompted many Chinese to reflect on examples of cultural
appropriation in their own country.
“So does that mean when we celebrate
Christmas and Halloween it’s also cultural appropriation?” asked one WeChat
user, Larissa.
Others were quick to point out that the
qipao, as it is known in China, was introduced by the Manchus, an ethnic
minority group from China’s northeast — implying that the garment was itself
appropriated by the majority Han Chinese. In its original form, the dress was
worn in a baggy style, mostly by upper-class women during the Qing dynasty,
which ruled China for more than 250 years, until 1912.
It was only in the 1920s and ’30s, when
Western influence began seeping into China, that the qipao was reinvented to
become the seductive, body-hugging dress that many think of today. For many
cinephiles, it has become inextricably associated with Maggie Cheung, the
actress who wore a stunning array of cheongsams in Wong Kar-wai’s 2000 film “In
the Mood for Love.”
These days, it is rare to see Chinese women
wearing qipaos in the street. Western “fast fashion” has taken over, though the
qipao has made something of a comeback among some official figures, like the
country’s first lady, Peng Liyuan.
“To Chinese, it’s not sacred and it’s not
that meaningful,” said Hung Huang, a Beijing-based writer and fashion blogger,
in an interview. “Nowadays, if you see a woman wearing a qipao, she’s probably
a waitress in a restaurant or a bride.”
The uproar surrounding the prom dress
highlights America’s growing — and increasingly complex — conversation about
race.
Several recent episodes have shown that
Asians and Asian-Americans do not always see eye to eye.
Diversity was certainly on the minds of the
filmmakers behind the 2016 Chinese-American coproduction “The Great Wall” when
they filled the movie with so-called Chinese elements — a predominantly Chinese
cast, story line and filming locations. In doing so, they addressed a diversity
concern in China, where moviegoers are increasingly sensitive to Hollywood’s
tendency to cast Chinese actors in bit parts. But after the release of the
movie trailer, another diversity issue arose: Several prominent Asian-Americans
criticized the filmmakers for casting Matt Damon in the lead role, as one of
the leaders of a Chinese army, likening the decision to “whitewashing.”
More recently, the debate has resurfaced with
the planned American release, in August, of the film adaptation of “Crazy Rich
Asians,” based on a series of novels about the lives of wealthy families in
Singapore. The casting has generated some controversy, in part over the
biracial actor chosen as the male romantic lead.
While the film is promoted as having an
all-Asian cast, the Singapore journalist and activist Kirsten Han wrote in a
2017 essay, “the focus is specifically on characters and faces of East Asian
descent (as dictated by the book).”
“This is already a misrepresentation of
Singapore at the most basic level, obscuring the Malay, Indian and Eurasian
(and more) populations who make the country the culturally rich and unique
place that it is,” she wrote. “A continent as massive as Asia can never be as
simple as the stereotypes imposed upon us.”
Back in the United States, Ms. Daum,
overwhelmed with the sudden wave of both praise and condemnation, was not
backing down.
“To everyone who says I’m ignorant, I fully
understand everyone’s concerns and views on my dress,” she wrote on Twitter. “I
mean no harm. I am in no way being discriminative or racist. I’m tired of all
the backlash and hate when my only intent was to show my love.”
Follow Amy Qin on Twitter: @amyyqin.
Karoline Kan contributed research from
Beijing.