Is it cultural appreciation or appropriation when your favourite celebrity chef takes your country’s traditional recipe and makes it their signature?
What if the food we're cooking is done in-authentically, or reinforces stereotypes?
The topic of cultural appropriation raises a minefield of personal issues and questions in this episode of Like Us, which somehow leads Noè Harsel, Anna Yeon and Zione Walker-Nthenda to Bridgerton.
When you think about our children and conversations about racism… if they don’t see real stories about racism where the people in positions of power were all white people and the people who were oppressed were all people of colour… if they look back and Kings and Queens and people in positions of power are from any background, it doesn’t make sense why their reality plays out the way that it does.Zione Walker-Nthenda
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Recorded and edited by Michael Burrows, Brand Music.
Transcript
Noè: We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are broadcasting from, the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation, we pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We would like to also acknowledge all Traditional Owners from all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands you are listening from.
What do you get when a Japanese-Jewish woman, a Korean woman and a Nigerian-Malawian woman get together to chat about living, working and raising families in Australia? You get ‘Like Us’, a podcast that is Anna Song, Noè Harsel and Zione Walker-Nthenda — 3 Australian women from different cultural backgrounds, discussing their personal relationship with Australia and Australia’s relationship with them.
Noè: Hello Ladies!
Zione: Hello Noe
Noe: How are we?
Zione: Good.
Noe: Yes, yes, good, good, good, because I got a little thing. I am not sure how I feel about this.
Anna: let’s hear it
Noe: It happens a lot, it happens a lot.
Anna: I am already laughing.
Noe: I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s not that I hate it. There are so many disclaimers, maybe there’s a lawyer in the room.
Anna: But something is getting under your skin.
Zione: Yes.
Noe: Yes, something is getting under my skin. It’s not that I exactly hate it, so just putting it out there. But I don’t exactly love it and I want to know how you feel because it will help me to identify my own feelings.
Noe: You know how there are so many celebrity chefs like in the paper, The Good Weekend or whatever it is, all those sorts of things. How do you guys feel when you see those sorts of chefs write cultural recipes that aren’t of their own culture, like say for example a celebrity Italian chef giving us a sushi recipe, or a kimchi recipe or whatever and you know that they definitely, definitely aren’t of that culture. Does a part of you just go, hmmm, interesting. And why wouldn’t they be allowed to do it, right?
Zione: Yes..
Anna: I mean they can do it but often they don’t do it well.
Noe: Ahun, look at that, did you see that….
Zione: But can I ask this question though, can they add their own infusion to it, so it’s sort of some kind of Italian of Kimchi
Anna: if it’s good but it’s rarely good. Because what my people have is already the best.
Noe: So for example, there has often been a raised eyebrow or two when you go into a Japanese restaurant or dare I say take away sushi joint, and there are Koreans behind the counter.
Anna: Noe is putting her hand on my arm…
Zione: Just to settle you.
Noe; Just because I don’t want to punch you as I say Koreans behind the sushi counter. So like, for example why not? So why couldn’t someone…
Anna: It’s a business.
Noe: So what’s the difference between a celebrity chef writing a traditional….
Zione: And maybe this is problematic but is it a way of even signalling that that food, that cuisine has arrived that so many different people, I know, I know it’s problematic, that so many different people can have a business selling that food. Does that make sense?
Anna: Has arrived….
Noe: I’m not against it, again I say, I am not against it but I am just curious. Okay, so would you trust a recipe from more, say, a sushi recipe, from say an Italian celebrity chef or from a Japanese chef?
Zione: Absolutely from a Japanese Chef.
Noe: But not all Japanese chefs know how to make sushi.
Zione: It’s an assumption, I am making an assumption that because…
Anna: Shouldn’t they?
Noe: Quite possibly. I guess I’m just curious because is it?
Zione: At what point does it move from cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation?
Noe: Yes, I guess that’s my question and it makes a me wonder. Is it, and this might be giving it too much information about me, my personal life and what I do…
Anna: What else is new?
Noe: In the late, late, hours of the evening. But like possibly, I’m hoping you guys as well, spend a few too many hours binging my favourite bodice rippers of my favourite English dramas..
Anna: I can’t believe you called it a bodice ripper.
Zione: It pretty much is if we are going down the road I suspect.
Noe: True confessions, and we love it. I do, do love it. Bridgerton.
Anna: Why do you say it like that?
Noe: Because babes we just need to take a breath.
Zione: I know and there’s satisfaction knowing you’ve watched it or binged.
Noe: Is there not a satisfaction in Bridgerton, Season one more than season two, much more satisfying.
Anna: But for different I mean, I would say for different reasons.
Zione: I like them both for different reasons.
Anna: What are your reasons?
Zione: I didn’t expect to like season two, because I was like, the Duke, how could you replicate all of what happened there? So, I was like, no I’m not going to watch season two, not watching, not watching… and then I’m going to watch it and then I binged the whole thing. But I enjoyed the sexual tension. I did, they kept me on the edge for a long time.
Noe: Oh my God, there was no sexual tension. I wanted sexual tension. I wanted sex. And that, I’m talking about the show, I just was a little bit… Anyway, beside the point, because I love an English man on a horse. Doesn’t matter what he is doing. So if you give me any English man on any horse, I am so there.
Anna: Does he have to be a White Englishman?
Noe: You know what, I am going to tell you, he doesn’t have to be White anymore. And thank you very much, thank you very much.
Zione: You now have additional reference points.
Noe: Now I have a diversity casting of Englishmen.
Anna: Options have widened.
Noe: Thanks to diversity casting, I can now have any colour Englishman on a horse and I am grateful for that.
Zione: And it still does the same thing…
Noe: And he could still be noble. I am happy that a diverse cast has allowed me to have a rainbow of colours in my nobility.
Zione: All on horses though…
Noe: All on horses though. All on horses and all in britches. Because there is nothing more attractive.
Zione: To each his own.
Anna: Is this episode of our podcast going to be 15 and over as well?
Zione: From this point onwards.
Noe: Okay, a little too much information, I get it but my point in this again, circling all the way back, is that whole concept of cultural appropriation, that whole use of diversity. Who has the claim of diversity? And in this notion of telling the stories who has the right to tell the stories and how are the stories being told? So, my point in all of this I guess, would be if we are using diversity casting and I love it, in so many ways, not just because of the eye candy, not just because of what it represents that all of a sudden there is a lot more equality in our casting in our television and the representation that we are now seeing.
My point is though as we get through generations, and generations where we are looking at television or movies as a way of storytelling and a way of, I put in inverted quotes, ‘truth telling’, as we look at David Copperfield as a person of colour, as we look at the Kings and Queens in our regency dramas as people of colour, and that becomes a way of historical representation, are we now seeing historical realism gone mad or gone historically fake, to the point where now we question where are the truths, where are the points of historical realism that get us to the point where we are now?
Anna: Okay just to take a breath, I can’t believe we went from bodice ripper to historical realism gone mad in like 5 minutes. This is so us… So I’m going to digest that a little bit and Zione you should dive in and be articulate and eloquent.
Noe: Do you want me to go back to men on horses?
Anna; well I did love what Zione said about cultural appropriation versus appreciation so do you have another like eloquent, lucid insight?
Noe: And we go to you?
Zione: Wow! Gee, the bodice ripper, historical reality, I think for people of this generation, you make a really, really good point. They are highly visual. All of their storytelling cues, most of them are from visual images, not from reading, right?
Noe: Like TikTok for example.
Zione: Exactly, TikTok, Instagram, everything right and so when you think about our children and conversations about racism and all of that stuff, and if they don’t see real stories about racism, where they actually see the Kings and Queens or whoever they were, the people in positions of power were all white people, and then the people who were oppressed were all people of colour and therefore I understand why we have particular dynamics at play currently, right? There are reference points that they can point to and draw a linear line to join the dots. If they look back and Kings and Queens and people in positions of power are from any background, it doesn’t make sense why their reality plays out the way that it does.
Anna: Oh, is that kind of like, seeing the Black Queen and in Bridgerton and not understanding why Meghan Markle had such a hard time with the British Monarchy.
Noe: Yes! Ding Dong!
Zione: Yes, exactomondo!
Anna: it’s just like Meghan, what was your problem, there was a Duchess, there was a Black Queen, what are talking about?
Noe: And also, how do you reconcile the slave trade. Like how did she let that happen? It must have existed. Like all of a sudden, reality comes into a play of fiction and they become intention so what do you do?
Zione: Well, we are still lucky because most depictions of history still represent the way that they played out, right? So, most of the Regency period dramas are still white people and the oppressed are still people of colour so people can join the dots. I suppose it becomes problematic, if in the future everything is blind casting and everything is diverse casting so there is no reference point for anybody to say but this is what the historical truth looked like. As long as you still have the historical truth as a reference point, then it is okay to have blind casting as an alternative.
Noe: Can I ask, do you think, And I don’t know, I am just asking. Do you think there needs to be some sort of explanation that this is not historical reality that this is as a result of blind casting.
Anna: Like, this is based on…. Like a disclaimer.
Noe: Like a disclaimer so it’s crystal clear that there is nothing in here that there was a Black Duke or an Asian princess, God forbid.
Anna: Ooh, I feel like I am about to say something smart.
Noe: Go ahead.
Zione: Say it now before you forget.
Anna: Like is that kind of… like what you phrased earlier. Is that diversity casting historical realism gone mad? Are we talking about historical appropriation?
Zione: Now we have to digest, I have to digest that.
Noe: well it is a possibility and it could be really interesting because also then, I mean taking this into something slightly different, using the whole notion of historical appropriation or cultural appropriation is when you take into, I suppose cultural realism. When you take things like Pachinko where they used real Korean actors and real Japanese actors.
Zione: Speaking their own language for…
Anna: For Korean characters and Japanese characters as opposed to what we are used to seeing like White dudes playing Asian characters and in the most awkward way.
Anna: Another like semi-intelligent reflection here. So, what was the.. when Tom cruise played a Samurai…was it called, ‘Last Samurai’,
Zione: But he was playing it as a Caucasian person. He was meant to be White.
Noe: So, he wasn’t trying… he wasn’t yellow facing. But what is interesting more recently as well was Opera Australia got called out for yellow face for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, which is a classic yellow face. And the reaction for that was it’s the Arts.
Anna: Well can I say though on that point, Madame Butterfly put me off Opera because of the
Noe: Because of the yellowface?
Anna: Because I mean, I was kind of like, should I keep going to see Operas, even though I like the music, because a lot of the plots, basically there’s this tragic female lead who always ends up kind of dead.
Noe: Oh, but that’s in general, that’s Opera in general.
Anna: But Madame Butterfly also added another layer. Because then I start thinking about colonisation, when I just want to go out and enjoy arts and theatre right?
Noe: Art should never make you think about anything!
Zione: Art should never challenge your…
Noe: God forbid!
Anna: I mean I don’t have to think about it every other second, you know. But just on, when I mentioned Tom Cruise, okay, I ‘m not going to have another semi-intelligent think to say about that but what I will say, going back to Pachinko was I loved the book. I read the book, obviously I read it first and I couldn’t wait for the streaming site to give it colour and movement. But what was so profound for me as an experience was to hear the languages of Korean and Japanese along with English in that production because it literally is like a tri-lingual production by an American studio. And I don’t actually think I’ve actually seen that before and to my ears at least, both the Korean and Japanese sound very authentic to me.
Noe: Yes, and when you were watching it with all three languages going in and it felt like a natural flow.
Anna: And it felt most closely reflective of my own lived experience where I live in a multi-lingual reality, and you have to switch between languages. And I did wonder like what the ordinary audience, like the mono-lingual audience thinking about this. Do they feel its distracting? Is it hard work for them to be reading and listening? But I wonder whether that actually means they get a….
Noe: A richer experience possibly.
Anna: Or just an experience of what it’s like to live in a hyphenated….
Noe: Hyphenated experiences.
Anna: Exactly.
Noe: There is something in that experience which is again taking cultural realism so therefore Korean actors, Korean language for a Korean part, Japanese actors, Japanese language for Japanese parts and I think again, I think it is strangely courageous, in inverted commas, right?
Zione: I know, it shouldn’t be. That’s the norm, right.
Anna: It should be simpler to do it that way.
Noe: Which I think you were mentioning previously when you were talking about something along these lines. When you were like, ‘Oh my God!’, how crazy was all the furore around Crazy Rich Asians as the only Asians, oh my God look at all these Asians in one movie together without a White person. God forbid!
Anna: Which is about Asians in Asia.
Zione: Who else should be in it?
Anna: And it was so celebrated as this all Asian cast, all Asian crew even maybe, Hollywood production.
Noe: They are all speaking English…
Anna: And I’m like, that same kind of hype I don’t really see around Pachinko.
Noe: but then again it is on a streaming platform and it is a book…
Zione: A literary sort of book, right.
Noe: And also, more real and again, language in language… but then I think you mentioned that it was actually subtitled and I think…. I had seen a film and I think I mentioned it to you Anna and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. I had a seen a film, and they didn’t bother subtitling the in-language part. Maybe in Japanese.
Anna: And it didn’t lose the plot?
Noe: Well for me it didn’t lose the plot because I think I understood enough of the Japanese for it to not to make a difference for me. But if you didn’t, I don’t think it would have. But what I loved about it was the fact that you were lost in those moments as you would have been as the character.
Zione: In real life. Exactly so it approximates real life and that’s absolutely fine because that happens in real life.
Noe: Like the written experience can sometime be and I think you were talking about a book like that.
Zione: Absolutely, a lot of Chimamanda Adichie’s books, she would write some the words in her books in Ibo, which is her native language, and I don’t speak that language.
Anna: Neither do I and I read her books.
Noe: Well that a coincidence because I don’t either.
Zione: So, none of us speak it and yet we can read her books and still completely understand everything that she is saying and it doesn’t matter that you can’t pick this word or even an entire phrase because you already get the context and the essence of what she is saying and that’s sufficient.
Anna: And I can still absolutely deeply appreciate and marvel at her literary genius, irrespective. It doesn’t distract me or diminish anything.
Zione: I agree.
Noe: there’s a bit of ownership like there is ownership in the use of language and the ownership in taking pride in that language. Again, like for example, and I know we have spoken about this before, I don’t like to italicise Japanese words when I’m writing them because to me it is just part of the written language, another word, for example. But I know a lot of people love, think it’s important to italicise foreign words.
Zione: So that you know that it’s foreign word
Noe: That it is different.
Anna: What is technically correct and so forth.
Noe: I understand the point in that. So you notice and you have a moment of pause at that point of difference and there’s different techniques and reasons for that. And I think it’s also worthwhile.
Anna; but didn’t you also say Zione so many English words having, so long ago, appropriated different roots.
Zione: Yeah. I mentioned Pyjamas. I think I’m correct but I think it comes from Hindi possibly so it’s come from India and yet most people know it as an English word right and so that’s not going to be italicised in a book because English language has absorbed it as they have a lot of different words, German words and..
Anna: And BBC’s Bananas in Pyjamas does take on a whole new meaning..
Zione: Totally, 100%
Noe: But I do think there is also our own, dare I say, with all due love and respect, our own collective arrogance, English being Lingua Franca, and so we accept, encourage and endorse that the English language is preferred, and I guess in a sense, the primary language that we are preferencing and so in that, all the things that we are talking about here, film and references and books, you know have to somehow be observant to that. Be they be italicised or not italicised, or subtitled or not subtitled. It’s in service to that. You know, it’s interesting in terms of that notion of appropriation, cultural appropriation or not, to whom are we in service?
Anna: So you know what Noe, I think that even though you’ve felt a little bit ashamed about binge watching Bridgerton, your favourite potentially bodice ripper. Because you casually dropped in Lingua, Franca, you’ve recovered your reputation.
Zione: You’ve elevated, absolutely.
Anna: So we don’t hold that against you.
Noe: Never a waste of time. Wait for the next one.
Noè: Thanks for listening to LIKE US, a new podcast by SBS. You’ll find more episodes of LIKE US on the SBS website, . You can also subscribe to LIKE US from the SBS Radio app, Apple or Google podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Your hosts are Noe Harsel, Anna Song and Zione Walker-Nthenda.
We are produced and engineered by Michael Burrows at Brand Music and would like to also thank everyone at SBS Radio, especially Caroline Gates, for their help and support.
