Matcha, anime, sushi, Buddhism and Hmart, what does that mean to people, their lives and how they grew up?
Lately East Asian culture, food and religion have been trending on TikTok, with the surge of companies selling their own matcha powder and cafes offering different flavors of matcha. The uprise in anime being in fashion and being a very popular genre. Sushi is now a high end food being sold at grocery stores like Tom Thumb or Kroger. Buddhism being a calm aesthetic with Buddhist hand symbols and tattoos of lotuses. And influencers going to Asian markets like Hmart and trying “trending” or “exotic” foods. But this recent attention on East Asians wasn’t always positive, in 2020 there was a 77% increase in Asian hate crimes and bullying and hate young Asian children faced their whole lives at lunch, history class etc. Not to mention the culture is being turned into a temporary trend as the culture is being stripped away from the people and lifestyle.
Growing up half Japanese people would always say things relating to anime as an insult, even though I don’t even watch anime, people would call me yellow, say that I eat dog or cat, give me side eyes while we learned about Pearl Harbor/ make WWII jokes and call foods that I love to eat like sushi disgusting and raw or making fun of matcha and say its blended up grass.
This sudden change in attitude towards East Asian Americans from being racist and bullying to being praised, worshiped and idolized is considered an insult to me, other Asian Americans and many Asian American content creators are speaking out on it. Yet when content creators are talking out about it the same people with a matcha in their hand and a lotus tattoo are commenting on peoples videos calling them “too sensitive” and “too woke”.
Controversy with Asian creators speaking out on the switch up on Asian culture escalated when half Asian TikToker Madilen said “ I can’t stop myself from giving snark to white people at Asian grocery stores.” This caused many white people to disagree, get mad and even disrespect Asians/ Asian culture because of this comment Madilen made. On the other half many Asian content creators agreed by saying that many Asian Americans are mad because the gentrification of Asian culture and non Asian people making it seem like they discovered something new and trendy while making these items extremely hard to find for Asian Americans trying to get a taste of home or trying to get something traditional and necessary.
Original names for dishes, traditions and items are also being changed up to make it sound completely different, take where it originally came from, make it sound brand new and to apply with non Asian Americans and for non Asian people to make profit and be the face. With traditional foods common in East Asia like Korean Congee or Japanese Oyacodon being over simplified and called “brothy rice” or white content creator Logan making a $300 hot pot set instead of encouraging people to make hot pot the way many Asian families make it or supporting small Asian businesses.
Yes it is great that more attention is being put on East Asian culture but its import to respect the culture and the people, to not forget about what East Asians and other minorities have gone through and still go through, to support small Asian businesses if you want to indulge in the culture and not be insensitive, appropriation or racist while participating in East Asian culture.