No more putting on kimonos at the MFA

I read the protesters' and the blogger's accounts. I thought it was pretty thorough. I am going to see the exhibit myself this evening.

Monet's intent is easily lost in the 21st century. There was no deep dive on this at the MFA either.

UPDATE: I went to the MFA, and heard the educational spotlight on Monet's La Japonaise. The replica kimonos are there, and no one can tell you anything about them. Except that they were donated by NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, after being used by museums in Japan that exhibited La Japonaise when it traveled there. There is no placard or flyer on the kimonos at all.

You can't learn from the art educator how they were made, what they were made of, what the symbols on the kimono mean, what the spirit on the kimono means, really nothing. You learn a tiny bit that Japanese-European trade was flourishing thanks to the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry.

The protesters, if they can even be called that, were very respectful. They asked pertinent and respectful questions of the art educator. They talked with people who were curious about why some in the Asian American community were offended.

Nothing was disrupted, except by a guy who wanted to pick a fight with any Asian. He told me I was creating a spectacle and that I knew nothing about art, even while I just stood there at the exhibit and had said nothing to anyone at all, except to say hello to some friends. My sympathy has gone up 100 times with the actual protesters who have to deal with jerks like that.

I am saying that, in fact, Japanese-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, Thai-Americans, Indian-Americans, Filipino-Americans (etc) do not make up a homogeneous undifferentiated mass. The do not necessarily share the same culture (or values). If the protest had vbeen _initiated_ by Japanese-Americans (and anyone else -- Asian-American or not) had supported these objections, one would have an entirely different situation.

I would say that it is as fallacious to lump all Asians together as it is to lump all "whites". Does an Irish person get to be the person to object to the appropriation of Parisian berets by the Japanese -- regardless of whether the French approve such "appropriation"?

This appears to me to be a mixed Asian group telling the Japanese what they get to like and what the rules for cultural interaction with people in the US are.

You are the ironic one here.

This isn't white people pretending to be Asian. This is one set of Asians working with non-Asians, and another group of Asians coming up with rules for both groups in the name of protecting the Asian group, as if the Japanese cannot decide the terms of these interactions for themselves - or the non-Asians need to discipline the interaction according to those "Asian" rules to protect them.

That's pretty damn patronizing.

Setting aside my impression that the article was both simplistic and paternalistic, it actually implies that the what the MFA was initially doing was not cultural appropriation. People attending the museum event were encouraged to learn the meaning and history of the kimono, and to wear a complete and authentic example in a non-ironic manner. That gets them safely through the 'flow-chart' at the end of the article.

Conversely, by the article's reasoning, nearly every child in Africa or Asia wearing an American T-shirt is far more guilty of cultural appropriation than the MFA attendees.

***

The protesters were silly. Actually, they were worse, they were exploitive wolf-criers who did nothing to encourage greater intercultural understanding or respect - in fact, wrt Japanese-American rapport, they did the opposite (which I cynically believe may have been their true motive all along).

Outrage Appropriation

I disagree with the analysis of the young person's protest sign, especially after reading the group's Facebook page. He was comparing putting on the kimono at the MFA last week to the way Camille Monet and the Parisians put it on, as the initial cultural appropriators. The Parisians so into Japonisme were citizens of an Asian colonial power, the French Union [Empire].

Hence, the sign, try on the kimono and feel how French imperialists would have felt.

... with your disagreement.

And I do agree with Sally that it was presumptuous for this group of protesters to take action with no apparent attempt to ascertain whether this was seen as problematic by Japanese or Japanese-Americans.

We share an experience of living in America and being seen and treated as outsiders. If only I could avoid another well meaninged compliment about how great my English is (I was born in the US!).

The seminal work on the topic is here: Strangers from a Different Shore by Ronald Takaki.