When I was little, my family visited my ah ma’s house almost every weekend. I loved the place; a green, flourishing garden right outside the front door perfectly complimented the interior. It was small and cozy, always wafting with the smell of burning incense and delicious food.
Every day, my ah ma handmade a spread of Taiwanese and Chinese dishes, covering almost every inch of her round dining table. I remember my favorites — steamed fish with green onions, soy-sauce marinated egg and braised pork, stir fried squid and chow mei fun vermicelli noodles.
When it was time to eat, she shoveled heaping piles of food into my bowl. I would hold the bowl with both hands, walking slowly to the dining table, careful not to spill even one grain of rice.
Often, my stomach couldn’t handle the amount of food she served me, resulting in me being the last at the table to finish my food. Even after an hour, the dining table wiped clean and leftovers put away, my half-eaten bowl, now grown cold, still sat idly. No matter how much I cried, wept or complained to my parents, I was not allowed to leave until I was done.
It was then my ah ma would scoop me into her arms and spoon-feed me the leftovers, bite by bite. She would tell me the importance of each grain of rice, each slice of pork and every vegetable leaf.
Looking back, sharing the food she made was her ultimate expression of love.
My parents shared this attribute. The three words “I love you” were hardly exchanged in my home, but fruit slices or freshly prepared meals worked as a substitute. As I grew older and surrounded myself with other East Asian friends, I realized many of them shared this experience too. In many cultures, food isn’t just meant for consumption, but as an extension of feelings and emotions.
But nowadays, I open social media to find that many of the dishes I grew up with have been minimized into surface-level trends, and it truly breaks my heart.
A Bite Out of Our Cultures
While social media can be used to share and educate, it has the potential to create an unwelcoming opportunity to appropriate and misconstrue.
When a “new” dish is introduced to the digital world, it is often renamed and rehashed with a newfound “brand.”
Sometimes, the dish becomes more well known by the trend and not its origin, and every fragment of its history disappears. This trend diminishes its depth, reducing it to a temporary craze. Influencers and restaurants often tweak the recipe, so it is more “accessible” and “better tasting,” decreasing the quality of the original dish.
Take for example, “Bobba.”
“Bobba” is a boba tea startup that pitched their company on the investment show “Dragon’s Den,” seeking $1 million from the investors on the show for 18 percent of their company. The two founders, who are both white, described boba as a trendy, sugary drink, saying that consumers “are never quite sure about its content.”
The co-founders advertised Bobba as a “healthier” version of the pre-existing, cultural drink, also introducing an alcoholic version of boba.
When one of the investors, actor Simu Liu, mentioned the danger of cultural appropriation, one of the founders replied:
“It’s not an [ethnic] product anymore.”
We are witnessing various cultures, traditions and practices that American society has pushed aside for so long, being accepted only when someone who is white promotes it.
Why does it take so much for our culture to be palatable?
And why is it only specific parts of us that are “trend-able”?
Many of these dishes once ostracized me from my peers, who called them “smelly” or “gross.” Judgement of these dishes once made me feel ashamed of my culture. When these dishes reappear in my life as whitewashed versions, it hurts a hundred times more.
Many influencers do make an effort to educate viewers about a dish’s history, but when it goes viral, the education is often ignored or lost. My point is not that we must know the entire history of a dish when you sit down at a restaurant, nor that you should not try new foods.
We need to understand that the cultures many influencers use for attention, followers and profit contain deeper histories — not just the isolation, villainization and murder of marginalized community members, but also the resilience and survival against cultural assimilation.
Stretching Past Cultural Dishes
Beyond food, all aspects of our cultures are being poked and prodded at. We watch as white influencers pick the desirable parts and sensationalize them, ignoring our cultures’ successes and struggles.
From a traditional Chinese dress qi pao becoming just a trendy fashion design, to the “fox-eye” beauty trend of transforming eyes into a specific, asian-like almond shape, acts of appropriation have bled into core facets of our lives.
In the age of social media, our cultures are treated as nothing more than a dead corpse, waiting for hungry vultures to tear it apart.
Now that I have gone off to college in Santa Cruz and left the protective blanket of my parents’ cooking, I find myself in an Asian food desert. Here, where homemade, authentic dishes are scarce, food has a whole new meaning. When I have the time to make a familiar dish, the first bite I take will always stand as a reminder.
A reminder of home and my parents, of my ah ma, her cooking, her love, her life. It stands as a reminder of my family’s struggles as immigrants.
It is a reminder that I am Taiwanese, Chinese and American, and I am proud of my multiculturalism. Our traditions and our lives are not a trend. Use your voice to work against societal norms that pick apart our cultures for their benefit and consumption.
For those who feel like me, speak up. Call the dishes by their real names and relay their histories to those who aren’t aware. We are in an age where many people spread senseless information across the internet to gain followers, ignoring the ethics of their actions.
Educate those who perpetuate this narrative. Use your voice, so we can stop it at the source.
For the rest of my life, I will continue to work toward a world where every bite of food, and all aspects of our cultures are properly acknowledged, represented and respected.
