Of late and at present, I am an unabashed fan and hopeless addict of Chinese historical or period dramas. This has been going on for months now. I can’t help it. There are so many excellent Chinese dramas (both current and past) posted online with English subtitles. K dramas are also my thing except that I have to depend mostly on Netflix (which, I must delightfully admit, does have a growing library of superb K dramas like Remarriage & Desires, Business Proposal, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, etc.) and a free streaming site Drama Cool. Most of us Filipinos have Chinese blood somewhere along the line. Take my maiden family name for example – Ochangco — an obviously Chinese origin name. After all, China has always (as if “makakalipat sila”) been the Philippines’ neighbor, just like our other Asian neighbors like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, et al. But I digress. There is another issue I am pursuing.
In the midst of my immersion into historical or costume Chinese dramas, I was thrown off by a comment of my granddaughter the other day. It caught me off-guard and set me off on a 2 day research. This was much like when the Ukraine Russia conflict started and I read somewhere in the news about a Tchaikowsky concert being cancelled only because the composer was Russian, and many other similar occurrences. What is this???!! Thankfully, this kind of knee-jerk reactions have tapered off considerably.
In the process of observing and admiring the costumes and sets of the period dramas I was watching, I was attracted to the hair accessories that the female leads were using. So, off I searched in Amazon for traditional Chinese hair accessories. I found what I wanted. When they were delivered, I was so excited that I took out the hair sticks and wore them around the house proudly showing them to my granddaughter. Right off, she sort of accused me, albeit gently, of “cultural appropriation”. Another what-is-this-moment! Needless to say, I was speechless for a few seconds. First of all, what is cultural appropriation?
I had to get to the bottom of this. I do remember reading recently somewhere about the House of Dior selling a kind of skirt without acknowledging the thousands- year- old original Chinese design from which it was apparently copied from. Search for videos on this brouhaha posted on YT. In this particular case, I would understand the negative feedback it elicited online. Apparently, Dior did not give credit where credit is due. It was marketing the skirt as a hallmark design of the House of Dior sans any acknowledgment that this was a design which has been used for thousands of years in China. From as early as the Han Dynasty which is considered as the golden age in Chinese history greatly defining Chinese civilization as it is known now. This Dior faux pas, I think, is a clear case of what I understand to be cultural appropriation. As I understand, the controversial Dior skirt has now been taken off the market. From what I have gleaned, it was being sold for USD 5,000. I still have to verify or fact-check this bit of information. Well, I would not be surprised if it is true. Referring to the hefty price tag. If anyone is interested, sorry for you, but the much-talked-about Dior skirt is supposedly sold out. Or perhaps it was a PR ploy when they took it off the market. Then again, maybe I am just getting ahead of myself.
But in my case, I would think that my use of a Chinese design-inspired hair accessory could be labelled as cultural appreciation rather than cultural appropriation. How complicated can life be? This conversations seems to be going around these days. Even the Vatican is not exempt as there is a clamor from some of the First Nations advocates to return some First Nations original artifacts spotted in a dusty, unlabeled, obscure part of the Vatican Museum recently. The Vatican promptly responded to say that they were gifts. It would be interesting how this scenario plays out. Let us see if Pope Francis’ visit to Canada will make a difference in this seemingly inconsequential matter. I say “inconsequential” if you look at it vis a vis the gargantuan gap that has to be filled in the light of the “uncovering” of the residential schools scandal.
Related to this matter is a very interesting and scathingly revealing article written by Patrick White, a staff reporter of the Globe and Mail in Toronto and published by Globe and Mail just last July 22, 2022 complete with photos and maps. The title is somewhat self-explanatory – “How the Vatican encouraged the colonization of Indigenous lands – and enabled the Crown to keep them.” It is meticulously researched and discloses a wider scope of how and why colonization throughout the world was accomplished and the impact or the imprint that it has left even today around the world. I encourage everyone to read it. You can just google Patrick White and the title of the article. It is free for everyone to read. Amazing piece of work and even more mind-boggling is the message in his article. Somehow, it reminds me of Jose Rizal’s Indios Bravos and the mindset and behavior of the Spanish colonizers of the Philippines during his time in the 19th century.
From cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation, we move on to another related topic – Emancipation Day here in Canada which is celebrated August 1. If I am to understand it correctly, on March of 2021, Canada’s House of Commons voted unanimously to mark or designate August 1st as Emancipation Day. This is the anniversary of when Britains’s Parliament abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1834. My question is – what took Canada so long? Maybe it is a result of a delayed hindsight guilt? As the cliché goes, better late than never.
Another August 1 celebration in ancient times is Lammas Day. Lammas is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘loaf-mass”. Traditionally, it is to welcome the harvest season and commemorate it with thanksgiving for the fruits of the land. If one were to choose something to celebrate, I feel that thanksgiving for what the land has given (and is still giving) us is the most important thing to be grateful for. Nature is always in the state of giving. And we have much to be thankful for.
So, to one and all, Happy Lammas Day, or just Happy August 1st! I have also learned many years ago, from my philosophy teacher,that in the metaphysical plane of existence, August 1 has the highest vibration of the year. And a consciousness of thanksgiving and gratitude ranks, undoubtedly, as one of the most positive kind of vibration. I have to keep reminding myself of this.
Before I take my leave, let me update you on the 2 books I read last month. I finally finished Michelle Zauner’s “Crying in H Mart”. It is a must-read! It was quite difficult to put the book down except that at times the author’s grief is so exquisite that one had to take a break. That was how it was with me. Her story is extraordinary but at the same time so relatable. Her humanity shines through every word and letter. I am looking forward with great eagerness to her next book, and also to the movie version of her book, the screenplay of which she is writing (or maybe has written already). Love her music as well. If not for the fact that that her concert in Toronto last July 13 was standing room only, I would have been there with my book, with the hopes of having it autographed. Well, next time. The vibes of her music are so 90’s. My favorites are Be Sweet, Boyish, Kokomo, IN, The Body is a Blade. Her lyrics are written like poems. They are poems. What an astounding talent she is. She deserves all the good things happening to her now.
The other book is the Noli Me Tangere of Jose Rizal. I am still struggling with it although I am now almost halfway through all 482 pages of it. If only to find out what was running in the mind of this polyglot or Rennaisance man that his novels sparked the revolution for independence in the Philippines, I strongly recommend Filipinos to read it. It is a bit heavy reading not so much because the topic is heavy, but because he uses a lot of rambling sentences, which go off tangent or waxes too poetic with allusions to the classics. Inspite of these, his novel is still fascinating in terms of giving one a very detailed picture or scenario of life then in the Philippines. It would be classified as fiction but most everyone knew that he was referring to real, live (or embodiments of) persons in actual life then. Take note though that the original novel was written in Spanish, and not too many Filipinos knew Spanish. So what the grass-roots people learned was, I suppose, through the re-telling of these stories by the fortunate ones who understood Spanish and knew how to translate them into Tagalog. As Filipinos, it behooves us to explore Rizal’s mind through his Noli Me Tangere. You may find it edifying.
With that, my friends, I look forward to the rest of August and a bountiful harvest of good things for all!
Tessie Ochangco-Taylor