5/9 Maira and Said

Maira and Said both talk about the ideas of orientalism, cultural appropriation and cultural significance in their articles. It is true that our world is a mixture of different cultures; Asian culture adopted the Western culture, while Western culture also influenced or affected by Asian or other minority cultures. However, it could cause negative portrayals to a certain culture or even distort the original meaning of the culture. In Maira’s article, she talks about the “Indo-Chic” by relating fashion to the popular culture. More and more cultural elements such as bindis and henna were adopted by mainstream Western culture. However, she has concern about that whether the popular media and Western culture would distort or change it historical meaning of these elements. This reminds me the Western fashion market. Many Chinese elements, such as cheongsam(a Chinese traditional dress) have been used in fashion design by Western designers. However, the cheongsam was made extremely short and sexy in order to show celebrities’ body shape, which was lost it original meaning( modesty, etc). Therefore, I think that cultural appropriation and cultural influences were important thing that we need to consider about.