a collection of my essays, from 2022 to 2024
Trending Now: Orientalism and Sinophobia in the Age of Social Media
essay information
entered into 2024 scholastic awards, won a gold key
˗ˏˋ★‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹Ironically, I first noticed something amiss on TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media app.
I didn't think anything of it at first: just a mix-up between a Chinese artist and a Japanese one with a similar art style. Just someone who didn't do enough research on the differences between traditional clothing on a video that had been reposted so many times that no one really knew who the original creator was.
But it kept on happening. Time after time, the work and art of Chinese creators were misattributed to other cultures. Chinese cartoons called "anime," Chinese comics called "manhwa," Chinese fashion labeled as "Japanese fashion," and Chinese traditional clothing tagged as "Korean clothing"— to the point where I had to set my phone down and think, "Is it ignorance? Or does the internet just dislike China?”
It turns out, it's a bit of both.
The United States, which used to call itself a melting pot with pride, has a knack for haphazardly lumping different cultures together into one big sludge and calling the resulting amalgamation whatever seems most fashionable at the time.
Historically, the term "melting pot" was used to describe a multicultural society "melting together" to become one great big America-immigrant-fusion culture, complete with hot dogs and sushi galore. However, the campaign didn't end up working out as well as it had intended to. It has become an inherently contradictory model of simultaneous isolation and assimilation.
Immigrants were encouraged to assimilate into the preexisting American culture and cast away their cultural traditions in favor of whatever was more “American”. Laws were created to repress the liberties, traditions, and particularisms of these newcomers, lest they stray from the path of becoming the ideal American immigrant.
Of course, it would be impossible for an immigrant from any country that wasn't in Europe to ever truly assimilate because of a multitude of superficial factors. Anybody with physical features that deviate from the traditional European standard is isolated as someone who isn't truly "American."
"Immigrants," then, in American terms, would be everyone who doesn't look like or act like the first white settlers. "Real" Americans have the liberty to call all East Asians "Chinese" or "Korean" or whatever suits their fancy, with little to no regard of the cultural significances and differences behind each individual culture.
Since the late 2000s, the term "melting pot" has been abolished, replaced with newer and savvier terms like "kaleidoscope" or "salad bowl," yet the underlying biases still haven’t changed. Under the guise of cultural acceptance, "real” Americans have adopted a newfound appreciation for East Asian cultures. Americans' love of anime, bubble tea, potstickers, and K-Pop is a huge improvement from the prior erasure that few want to mention— but it's become harmful in a similar way.
K-Pop fan accounts with the username "Mai " are ubiquitous on social media (with no one questioning the fact that it would usually be spelled Mae in Korean) as are pseudo-Asian influencers begging to be addressed with names like Yui-chan or Sakura-chan with little to no research about what the suffix implies. Earlier this year, the internet showcased a trend (aptly named RCTA, or race-change-to-another) in which teens attempt to change their race to what would usually be East Asian by listening to "subliminal sounds" on YouTube that supposedly made their eyes appear smaller or made their skin look more yellow.
The RCTA trend is a more recent example demonstrating the effects of the “melting pot” agenda: a lack of acknowledgment of what characterizes a culture aside from the aesthetics of the general founding ethnic group. Those who are part of the RCTA movement cite their reasons for “transitioning” as a love for the language (they claim, as the Korean characters in their name translate to something adjacent to “fried chicken”) and, of course, their favorite anime character. They punctuate their sentences with generic Japanese terms and post “subliminal result” pictures with Chinese makeup captioned as “anime makeup!” on Discord. The melting pot strikes again, amalgamating several distinct East Asian cultures into a featureless blob, denoted by whatever is most in fashion at the moment. In a manner that can only be described as uncaring and incredibly privileged, those who are RCTA overlook the discrimination that Asian immigrants face in the United States on a daily basis while masquerading as a different race.
This isn’t the first time Asian cultures have been romanticized in such a way. Orientalism, a term coined by Edward Said in his book of the same title, is defined as a “pervasive Western tradition— academic and artistic—or prejudiced outsider interpretations of the Eastern world.” It characteristically perpetuates a flippant and condescending outlook on individual cultures. While more often used to describe the Western outlook on those from the Middle Eastern cultures, it applies, too, to the perception that Americans have come to have about those from East Asia—a hazy mix between the limited knowledge that most Americans have about the region.
So, is the reason why so many Chinese traditions are now being falsely attributed to other East Asian ethnicities because of ignorance, or something more? While there definitely seems to be a general lack of discerning between oh-so-similar cultures of East Asian countries, how come there hasn’t been a case of a Korean artist being mistaken for Chinese? Or a Japanese animation mistaken for Chinese?
The answer to my question was right before me, on the other side of the media. I turned to news articles and television reports, which provided a completely different perspective on the topic: politics. However, even after scrolling through article after article, I found myself completely bewildered by how this translated into the mistreatment of all Chinese people, affiliated with the government or not. As a Chinese person myself, I still don’t know or understand half of the political problems present, even after having powered my way through numerous Google searches.
The media—from the figurative “untamed” Wild West of internet comment sections where users post whatever they want to the more “civil” realm of published articles by self-proclaimed experts—has a way of sowing fear and misinformation in the general public. Facts, when put through the metaphorical telephone game that the media plays, become exaggerated claims, made worse by the sheer volume that users are forced to read through each day. The aforementioned “civil” reporters claim that all Chinese people are “spies for the government.” Some who read these articles decide to take action through violence. “It would be one less person to blow up our country,” says the killer of a Chinese student. Those who have been living in the US for as long as they can remember are blamed for the so-called “China virus.” Outwardly racist posts and articles spew bigoted nonsense, chock full of slurs, hate, and anti-Chinese sentiments that blur the line between being Chinese ethnically and being Chinese politically. Through such fear-mongering, Chinese people (whether they know it or not) have become the online scapegoat.
This creates a vicious cycle of hate and fear—the more misconceptions about China as a country, the more misdeeds that China (and Chinese people) will be accused of committing, leading to further misconceptions about China as a country. A cycle like this doesn’t just stay on the screens. A study compiled by data journalist Katharina Buchholz revealed that in 2005, less than 10% of Americans recognized China as a threat to the United States. By 2023, over 50% of Americans had decided that China is “the single greatest enemy of the US.” This study reflects the American perception of the Chinese government, but it also has a direct correlation with the rate of Asian hate crimes in the United States, with a significant spike occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
China, and by extension, its people, has since come to be regarded as a multitude of (mostly negative) things. “[C]hina is an unoriginal country,” says one user on Reddit. “everything it churns out is a ripoff… all [C]hinese people are brainwashed and need to go back to where they came from.” Animosity towards China combined with the lack of discerning between the country itself and its people result in the false assumption that Chinese people are incapable of creating things that can be outwardly appreciated—at least, not without having the conversation turn to something political. Time and time again, videos that correctly attribute Chinese work and art to the original artists are filled with comments making unjustified theft claims, citing the “fact” that a Chinese person could never make anything original. The art is then “given” to a different culture and praised for being creative and skillful.
It's not just art that receives this treatment. Different cultural trends and traditional pieces are also falsely attributed and “appropriated,” even, to similar yet completely different East Asian cultures. For example, the Hanfu, a traditional piece of Chinese clothing with a rich history is often called a “kimono” despite the two looking completely different.
Hate for China has become a refusal to recognize the skill and talent that is present in so many Chinese people. How can it be fair that for so many aspects of Chinese culture to be appreciated, it must be shared under the name of a different culture?
A (now deleted) TikTok addressing this very topic was taken down after a barrage of comments telling the original poster to cry about it and deal with the hate. “sounds like ur just sensitive,” claims one user. “ok, and? doesn’t matter who’s name the art is under as long as people like it.”
But the truth is, it matters. Many Chinese artists are advertising their art as Japanese or Korean in order to gain popularity because the internet refuses to recognize their work for what it truly is, resulting in even further confusion and ignorance about the differences between cultures. In fact, these desperate artists are adding to the mess that is the “melting pot” mindset that Americans have today: how can someone discern between East Asian cultures when Chinese artists are being forced to masquerade as Korean?
The longer this continues, the harder it will become to break out of the cycle of hate. Innocent and talented people won’t be able to share their culture for what it is. The already diminishing positive associations of Chinese people will become obsolete. And, as is evident already with Americans’ political perceptions of China, what is shared online will bleed into the real world. Racist and hateful comments exist online because it’s a place where people can say what they really think freely. It would be wishful thinking to presume that, as society’s Overton window is once again changed, these racist comments won’t be as commonplace in real life as they are on the internet.
But, it doesn't have to end this way: all it takes is to create a new cycle, replacing shame with acceptance, appropriation with appreciation. The platforms where this hate started can be utilized to combat it as well. TikTok. Twitter (X). Reddit. Stop scrolling when you see a hateful comment--don’t become complacent about the discrimination. Repost disrespectful or prejudiced information with corrections to educate others. Call out stereotypes and ignorance. Become outspoken about the problems that Chinese users face rather than staying silent. By encouraging the marginalized and oppressed to advocate for themselves and embrace their culture, we can reinforce a positive cycle online. After all, what happens on the internet eventually happens in real life and if we can foster a positive movement rather than a negative one, then perhaps reality will reflect the decrease in hate online.
