Jeff Burgar
These days, it’s easy enough to get into long talks about so-called ‘cultural appropriation.’
It is often bewildering to some people why a flag is flown at half-mast for some people, not for others. Or courtesy should be given to a smudging ceremony.
Questions are asked by well-meaning people. One might ask, “I want to show respect to aboriginals. Is it still OK for me to wear a ribbon shirt?” There is the person who builds a nice-looking Inunguat in her front yard. Or the lady who decides they can build dreamcatchers. The coach who wants to name their team “The Braves.” Or hunting with snowmobiles.
Where does this so-called cultural appropriation begin and end?
In this melting pot called Canada, it all indeed can be quite confusing. And not just to newcomers. Every week it seems, there is some new wrinkle of somebody claiming something is “theirs, and only theirs” and anybody else using it in some way is honestly offending their sensibilities.
And of course, there are those just jumping on the wagon of the day.
Last fall, Asian Canadian actor Semu Liu, appearing on the CBC television show Dragon’s Den, took offense at a pitch by some entrepreneurs. The pitch delivered to Dragons was for a Taiwanese tea traditionally called bubble tea.
To quote a weareresonate.com article about the show, “The company, Bobba, presented their product as a ‘convenient and healthier ready-to-go experience,’ boasting innovations such as alcoholic bubble tea and grab-and-go popping boba.”
In the story, Liu said on the show ,“There’s an issue of cultural appropriation. There’s an issue of taking something that’s very distinctly Asian in its identity and quote-unquote ‘making it better,’ which I have an issue with.”
As it turns out, Bobba’s main supplier is in Taiwan. “They are part of our team,” the pitchers say. Liu was unconvinced. It’s the same with many people, who too often line up hard on one side of the conversation, or the other.
You might have no position at all on this issue. You, like so many of us, do not even consider it an issue. To many of us, copying a tradition of some sort is, without our even thinking of it, a way of showing respect to whomever and wherever it came from. The whole discussion might be as pointless as saying “Good pizza. But you horribly disrespected Italians when you put pineapple on it.” You might as well say, only an Italian is allowed to make a pizza, because that’s where pizza was invented!
Interestingly, despite the origin of pizza (originally believed a version of flatbread) lost in history, the main ingredient of tomatoes never made it to the Old World until the 1500s. Pepperoni pizza was first made in New Haven, Connecticut according to one source. And the Hawaiian pizza? Invented in good ol’ Canada.
Which can show you, when things are copied, it is much more a sign of appreciation than of disrespect. As the saying goes, “Imitation is indeed the most sincere form of flattery.” Or is it something else?