I’m reminded of this:


我想起了这个:

“Anonymous” here calls out the “white” girl on the left for cultural appropriation and wearing a “kimono”, and the girl then posts a picture of herself showing that she’s Japanese.
Now there’s lot to unpack here.
Firstly, Japanese people are white. No, seriously, I’m Irish, and we’re pretty much the whitest people in the whole of Europe. A lot of my Japanese students are whiter than I am, although mostly it is the girls who avoid sunlight like they’re vampires because pale skin is generally still seen as a status symbol (it’s a holdover in beauty standards from the past where peasants had to work outdoors and got tanned, while nobles could stay indoors and were paler).
So let’s get rid of this “yellow people” nonsense. The average Japanese person is probably whiter than you are.

“匿名者”在这里指责左边的“白人”女孩是文化挪用，穿着“和服”，然后这个女孩发布了一张自己的照片，表明她是日本人。
这里有很多东西要打开。
首先，日本人是白人。不，说真的，我是爱尔兰人，我们几乎是整个欧洲最白的人。我的很多日本学生都比我白，尽管大多数是女孩像吸血鬼一样躲避阳光，因为苍白的皮肤通常仍然被视为地位的象征(这是过去的审美标准的延续，农民必须在户外工作，皮肤被晒黑，而贵族可以呆在室内，皮肤更白)。
所以让我们摆脱这种“黄种人”的废话吧。一般日本人可能都比你白。

Interestingly when I first arrived in Japan I thought I’d gone to the wrong country, because I saw the tennis team playing, and they were Indian-brown. Japanese people can go incredibly brown in summer, but that just highlights the ridiculousness of the entire “skin colour” discourse when someone can go from “Omg! They’re brown” to “Whiter than the Irish” during the course of a single year. Human stupidity in action.
Oh, and her red hair? Most schools in Japan have strict rules about not dying hair, so the first thing most university students do is dye their hair crazy colours. Last year blueish-white was really “in”, I think because some K-pop star had it that colour, but a couple of years before that I saw the red colour in this photo quite a bit.

有趣的是，当我第一次到日本时，我以为我走错了国家，因为我看到了网球队的比赛，他们是印度棕色的。日本人在夏天可以变成令人难以置信的棕色，但这只是强调了整个“肤色”话语的荒谬，因为有人可以从“天哪!在一年中，他们是棕色的”到“比爱尔兰人更白”。人类的愚蠢在行动。
哦，还有她的红头发?日本大多数学校对染发都有严格的规定，所以大多数大学生做的第一件事就是把头发染成疯狂的颜色。去年蓝白色真的很“流行”，我想是因为一些韩国流行歌手有这种颜色，但在那之前几年，我在这类照片里看到了很多红色。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Secondly, Japanese people are very happy when people imitate their culture. They love people eating sushi, making bentos, and every international festival I’ve been to in Japan has had a corner for Westerners to try on kimonos and get photos taken.
Why? Because it promotes communication, exchange of ideas and culture, and is good for peace. It is easy to go to war with someone you don’t know or understand. It is far harder to go to war with someone whose clothing you’re wearing and whose food you eat. Not impossible, but harder. As a result the Japanese generally promote international exchanges of ideas, language, culture, etc.
Also note that part of the reason Japanese people don’t tend to fuss about “cultural appropriation” is in no small part because they’re reasonably rich.

其次，当人们模仿他们的文化时，日本人非常高兴。他们喜欢人们吃寿司、做便当，我去过的每一个日本国际节日都有一个角落供西方人试穿和服和拍照。
为什么?因为它促进了沟通，思想和文化的交流，有利于和平。与你不认识或不了解的人开战是很容易的。与你穿他的衣服、吃他的食物的人开战要困难得多。不是不可能，但更难。因此，日本人普遍促进思想、语言、文化等方面的国际交流。
还要注意的是，日本人不倾向于对“文化挪用”大惊小怪的部分原因在很大程度上是因为他们相当富有。

Which leads us onto the topic of “what is cultural appropriation”?
Honestly this is a phrase that has been hijacked from academia by the public, and is actually a very nuanced and complex academic debate that has been dumbed down, warped and then put through a pasta-making machine until it has reached the point where nobody in the general public really knows what it means, because it is being used by a whole lot of different people in a whole lot of different ways. The words “cultural appropriation” have become utterly meaningless.
However I can give you a simple example of why it was such a big debate in academia.

这就给我们引出了“什么是文化挪用”的话题。
老实说，这是一个被公众从学术界劫持的短语，实际上是一个非常微妙和复杂的学术辩论，它被简化了，扭曲了，然后放进“意大利面制作机器”，直到它达到了一个普通公众中没有人真正知道它的意思的地步，因为它被很多不同的人以很多不同的方式使用。“文化挪用”这个词已经变得毫无意义。
然而，我可以给你一个简单的例子，为什么这在学术界是一个大争论。

Western pharmaceuticals companies have a nasty habit of going to Africa, Asia, or South America to some really poor tribe and asking their local witch doctor, wise woman, or elders, “So, what natural medicines do you use?”.
These company reps then grab samples of that plant, animal, or stone, and take it back to their labs where (using that tribe’s wisdom collected over thousands of years as a starting point to know what to look for) they identify the key compounds, test them on lab animals, find out what they do, then develop new drugs that they sell for billions of dollars.
… and of course the poor tribe in Africa or wherever never sees a single cent of those profits. In some cases the plant is indigenous to the area and only grows well there so the company may even buy up their land and have that tribe removed so they can mass cultivate their newest miracle drug. Of course they’re not buying the land from the tribe, but some government official, so again the tribe gets nothing but shafted, and in some extreme cases tribes have fought back and lives have been lost. Yes, companies literally killing people so they can steal their stuff. Who says colonialism is dead?

西方制药公司有一个讨厌的习惯，他们去非洲、亚洲或南美洲的一些非常贫穷的部落，问他们当地的巫医、智者或长老，“那么，你们用什么天然药物?”
然后，这些公司的代表会采集该植物、动物或石头的样本，并将其带回实验室(以该部落数千年来收集的智慧为起点，知道要寻找什么)，在那里确定关键化合物，在实验室动物身上进行测试，了解它们的作用，然后开发出新的药物，并以数十亿美元的价格出售。
当然，非洲或其他地方的贫穷部落从未从这些利润中分得一分钱。在某些情况下，这种植物是该地区的本土植物，只在那里生长得很好，所以制药公司甚至可能买下他们的土地，把那个部落赶走，这样他们就可以大规模种植他们最新的神奇药物。当然他们不是从部落那里买地，而是从政府官员那里买地，所以部落什么也得不到，只是受到了欺骗，在一些极端的情况下，部落进行了反击，造成了人员伤亡。是的，公司确实在杀人，这样他们就可以偷他们的东西。谁说殖民主义已经死了?

This is an example of cultural appropriation. It is corporations profiting from another culture’s intellectual property (whether that be medicines, clothing designs, etc.) without paying for it.
Disney movies like Moana, which profited from retelling Hawaiian folk stories, but never shared a single dollar of the profits with the Hawaiian people, are an example of cultural appropriation.
Fashion designers going to Africa and copying “ethnic” patterns and selling those designs as their own intellectual property, without paying the people they stole them from, are an example of cultural appropriation.
The key issue is the belief that poor tribes don’t have a right to their own intellectual property because they’re ignorant of intellectual property laws and lack the money and resources to fight back against this sort of exploitative business process.

这是一个文化挪用的例子。它是企业从另一种文化的知识产权(无论是药品、服装设计等)中获利而不支付费用。
像《海洋奇缘》这样的迪士尼电影，从复述夏威夷民间故事中获利，但从未与夏威夷人民分享一分钱的利润，就是文化挪用的一个例子。
时装设计师去非洲复制“民族”图案，并将这些设计作为自己的知识产权出售，而不付钱给被偷的人，这就是文化挪用的一个例子。
关键问题在于，人们认为贫穷的部落没有权利拥有自己的知识产权，因为他们对知识产权法一无所知，而且缺乏资金和资源来反击这种剥削性的商业过程。

As the global economy moves increasingly towards an “ideas economy” this sort of exploitation is becoming more serious, and a lot more lucrative for companies.
“Cultural appropriation” was never intended to be about shaming some little girl wearing a kimono at her tea party with her dollies, or about yelling at you for making bentos (although the company selling the “bento boxes” probably has some questions to answer if they’ve copied those designs from Japanese bento box companies and not paid for the design).
In short, if you’re not making a profit off some other culture’s intellectual property then you’re in the clear.
If you were selling “Japanese bento lunches” then maybe, possibly, perhaps an argument could be made that it would be good manners and ethically responsible to ensure that some portion of your profits went to Japan or a Japanese charity.
However just making and eating a “bento”? Seriously, no. That’s in no way “cultural appropriation”. You’re not a huge corporation stealing intellectual property from poor people and then not paying them anything for their ideas.

随着全球经济日益走向“创意经济”，这种剥削正变得越来越严重，企业的利润也越来越丰厚。
“文化挪用”从来不是为了羞辱那些在茶话会上穿着和服的小女孩和她的洋娃娃，也不是为了对你做便当大喊大叫(尽管销售“便当盒”的公司可能有一些问题要回答，如果他们抄袭了日本便当盒公司的设计，并且没有支付设计费用)。
简而言之，如果你没有从其他文化的知识产权中获利，那么你就没有问题了。
如果你卖的是“日式便当午餐”，那么也许，也许有人会说，确保你的部分利润捐给日本或日本慈善机构是一种礼貌和道德上的负责任。
然而，只是做一个“便当”?说真的,没有。这绝不是“文化挪用”。你不是一个大公司，从穷人那里窃取知识产权，然后不为他们的想法支付任何费用。