It’s time to rethink about “cultural appropriation”

Recently, Sebastien Fiset and Jess Frenette, the founders of a Canadian drinks brand Bobba were accused of cultural appropriation for offering their own version of bubble tea. The reason? They were not Chinese and the packaging did not make any reference to bubble tea’s Taiwanese origin.

I hope they only regard this as a temporary setback and will eventually bring bubble tea to Canadians, because their “culture appropriation” is the best kind.

They identified a potential in the market for bubble tea, knew how to tweak the original version to better suit their local customers, and were willing to work hard to bring this idea into reality. They could enrich people’s lives slightly by introducing more choices and create some jobs. It can’t get better than that.

Cultural appropriation can be negative when a dominant culture takes something from a minority culture and exploits it for their own benefit, no longer in the context of the original use. This is nowhere near the case here. 

Moreover, if we enlarge the concept of culture to be about all things that relate to our lives, we will find that “appropriation” is a way for idea exchanges, and the world we live in is full of such appropriations, either culturally, politically or in economics.

On the cultural side, tea itself, an indigenous drink made from the leaves of a plant native to China, Camellia sinensis, is now a drink enjoyed around the world with multiple variations of tea cultures and rituals. If you are interested, read some interesting stories about tea here: https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources?view=article&id=201&catid=10 

On the political side, think about the origin of the UK’s civil service system. In the UK, civil servant selection was arranged through patronage until the publication of the 1854 Northcote–Trevelyan Report, which led to the establishment of a competitive examination system for selecting civil servants. This idea was disseminated to Europe by missionaries, merchants and diplomats who learned about the Chinese government’s exam system, which had been in place for well over a thousand years.

On the economics side, think about China’s reform and opening-up in the late 1970s. Deng Xiaoping recognised that the market economy was a good idea, and modified it into the “socialist market economy” that worked in China. That has made a huge beneficial impact in the course of the country in every possible way.

The list goes on.

The key to the success of these appropriations is that these ideas were not just copied wholesale, but were modified to fit their own needs. Aromatic herbs and spices are added to tea in South Asia. Not all government companies were privatised in China. The UK designed its own exam papers. 

When an idea is copied wholesale without factoring in local environments, such as historical backgrounds or social preferences, it will fail to catch on. The best outcome is that it will be soon forgotten, but the worst is to cause tremendous harm.

Think about the USSR in the 1990s and its “shock therapy”, which aimed at transitioning the USSR from a state-controlled economy to a free-market system. The central government clearly recognised the benefits of a market economy. However, it just wanted to copy it from the West without doing the hard work, i.e. modifying it according to its own social environment. With the help of an influential economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, a good idea was turned into a severe social and economic disaster. 

Different from the USSR, who brought disaster to itself, in Afghanistan, this copying was done by the US.

Following the 2001 invasion, the US worked to construct a democratically elected government in Afghanistan, promoting human rights and media freedom while offering significant financial aid and military support. However, the project ultimately failed. With the withdrawal of the US troops in 2021, the Afghan government quickly collapsed. The US tried to transplant an idea that it holds near and dear, but only created problems for itself and the region.

Lu Xun, a leading figure of modern Chinese literature, said it the best. He coined a word “take-ism”: Whatever is beneficial to the progress of the nation and people, whether it is ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, we should take it. This “take-ism” is to select, absorb and possess all useful, beneficial and good things in both ancient and modern times anywhere. 

Just don’t copy blindly, and don’t let others copy on your behalf.

I hope Bobba founders consider this take-ism an open invitation, and pick up where they have left off, as we need more of this kind of appropriations.