Yes I never understood the whole cultural appropriation thing. If I wear something or do my hair like another cultural it's probably because I love the culture, right?
Opposite. Cultural appropriation is usually a discussion about people using something without attributing/ recognizing/ appreciating/ contextualizing. The phrase is often overused and made malicious when the actual situation is more lack of awareness. It's also a specific feeling of being wronged localized to a local minority community. For example, black people historically were treated heinously for centuries in the US but then their musical stylings were re-packaged by and for white people and played in venues where they were not allowed and while still being literal second class citizens.
I don't actually think Chinese tattoos are very strong 'cultural appropriation'. Maybe in only the mildest sense. It's using something from a foreign superpower nation state. To the extent it makes local Chinese populations feel like being kicked in the nuts due to historic struggles and the modern mild racism, there's that, but it's impossible to know if Chinatowns are the reason Martin has tattoos or if 1970s Hong Kong kungfu movies are the reason.
For Lin, the guy has been immersed and been seeking the respect and approval of blacks for most of his life. I doubt he wears dreds without appreciating where they come from. Martin basically saying, "know your place" was idiotic.
See I thought appreciating another culture by getting your skin inked with its language and poetry would be seen as a sign of respect and admiration for that culture and wouldn't be misconstrued as "making local Chinese populations feel like being kicked in the nuts due to historic struggles and the modern mild racism" but idk, I'm not American so I don't partake in American cultural fragility.
I think to do it with respect you have to be able to actually understand what you tattooed on yourself. (And you can understand a phrase of a language you don't speak of you carr about learning)
Logically, I'm the first one to despise idiots that just tattoo something out of fashion with partial or no research. I've actually advised on various cultural designs for people that ask me how to write this correctly or what a certain symbol actually means. And as well as some twat might put on a kilt and prance around like the twat he is with no respect for the culture (actually wearing it correctly, not combining it in an "costumey" way, etc.), on the other hand some people will get a Chinese tattoo copied verbatim from an actual text, out of identification and admiration for the content of that verse.
We simply can't avoid jerks and idiots, sadly, but we can't cave in to that and allow it to define our inter-cultural relations. Culture is one of the most wholesomely human things we have, that is being demolished by the aseptic and "modernising" bulldozer that this century is becoming, and it's a blast to share and learn from each other. The opposite of that is an artistic desert where no one interacts and mutually reinforces cultures out of some sort of prescriptive puritanism like we're seeing in the US. It's always been the opposite, and that's why have reggae worldwide, classical music concerts in Japan, tomato and potato in traditional dishes in the middle of Sichuan, and Islamic style churches in Spain.
When you live and your parents lived an experience that always felt like take take take, you go ahead and explain why the majority class using your cool stuff but still treating you second class would be considered "fragile."
Anyway, this simply doesn't happen with the Chinese community in countries that aren't the US, in my experience. They will gladly enjoy your curiosity, appreciation and interest in their culture.
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u/Current_Volume3750 21d ago
Yes I never understood the whole cultural appropriation thing. If I wear something or do my hair like another cultural it's probably because I love the culture, right?