Foreigner Wearing Qipao to Prom: Cultural Appropriation or Appreciation?
Chunyang Tao
Sept 2021
When Keziah Daum, an eighteen-year-old girl, posted pictures of herself wearing a qipao, or cheongsam, to prom on Twitter in April 2018, she would never have imagined this would lead to so much controversy on social media. With a viral tweet stating, “My culture is NOT your goddam prom dress,” Twitter user Jeremy Lam explained that for the qipao, the traditional Chinese dress, “to simply be subject to American consumerism and cater to a white audience, is parallel to colonial ideology.” While you may hold the same view as Keziah that wearing a cultural garment shows appreciation for that culture, a lot of people, especially those Asian Americans of Chinese ancestry, shared Lam’s view that qipao is not something that can be so simply worn to prom by a non-Chinese person. In their opinion, the whole situation is considered cultural appropriation, where Keziah, who’s from a dominant American culture, appropriated what they considered to be a clothing tradition of a minority culture of their own.
Keziah’s critics’ accusations may seem plausible since qipao is indeed quite an iconic Chinese garment. When I think of it, what comes to mind are actresses in Hong Kong silent films and the formal attire of Chinese female ambassadors. It seems that the qipao indeed has a conspicuous tie to Chinese culture and Chinese women. The fact that Keziah wore it to a prom party and posed peace signs with her friends may indeed seem somewhat casual and inappropriate. Thus, her Chinese American critics viewed her behavior as a profanity to this cultural attire because, in their opinion, qipao should be worn with enough reverence, and it should only be worn by someone within their ethnic group. On the other side, Keziah claimed that her intention for wearing qipao was for appreciation rather than appropriation, explaining in an interview that “the people who are responding to this in a negative way don't fully understand the whole story and the reason I wore the dress in the first place. It’s important to be aware of intention, and my intention was to show my admiration for this culture” (qtd. in Greenbaum). So, is it necessary or even reasonable for all Chinese people to get so indignant just because an American girl who appreciates the beauty of the dress, as well as the culture behind it, wore it to her prom?
Surprisingly, and even ironically, across the Pacific Ocean, the Chinese public took a completely different stance from those Chinese Americans on Twitter. Most of us were quite supportive of Keziah and many, including myself, were pleased by her action. Many of us felt proud that our culture was recognized by a foreign girl and think it is essentially wrong to equate what Keziah did to cultural appropriation. In a New York Times article from 2018, Hong Kong-based cultural commentator Zhou Yijun said, “It’s ridiculous to criticize this as cultural appropriation. From the perspective of a Chinese person, if a foreign woman wears a qipao and thinks she looks pretty, then why shouldn’t she wear it?” (qtd. in Qin).
To understand why there is such a huge divergence on the perception of Keziah wearing a qipao to prom, and why Keziah’s behavior is indeed cultural appreciation rather than cultural appropriation, we first need to examine qipao itself. One major criticism Keziah received was that she profaned the dress by wearing it to a party. Indeed, qipao is cultural attire, but it is not that traditional and does not require that much reverence. As a matter of fact, many Chinese people don’t even consider it be a well-revered clothing tradition because it somewhat reminds us of the oppression for the Han Chinese people; it was adapted from the Machu style of clothing, which was forced on the Chinese by the Machu people during the Qin dynasty along with the Queue Order. The more reverential clothing traditions for a typical Chinese person are mostly Hanfu and Tangzhuang, which, respectively, originated from two of the most prosperous dynasties in Chinese history, Han and Tang. In case you may have a vague impression of what Hanfu looks like, just think of the traditional Japanese kimono with a narrower waistband and longer sleeves.
The Hanfu is the most dominant clothing style throughout Chinese history and was later adapted by a lot of Asian countries to form their own traditional clothes. But qipao tells the reverse story, with the short history and oppressive memories it brought to Han Chinese people. In contrast to some cultural garments with deeper-level cultural and spiritual significance, like the Native American headdress, qipao is quite neutral in China nowadays as a retro fashion clothing choice, which anyone can wear anywhere, whereas Keziah’s critics ascribed it with untouchable reverence. While for these critics qipao may appear to be unsuitable for a party scene, it is quite common to see people wearing qipao on casual occasions in China, whether it be the waitresses in restaurants or people chatting in tea houses.
Keziah’s Chinese American critics may never have lived in China before and the only impression they had of qipao is through Western media, which presents qipao as overly elegant. So it is understandable that they reacted with outrage because they think Keziah is not giving her full respect for this dignified attire. For people who actually live in China, qipao certainly is one of the optimal choices for formal gatherings, but it has its casual side as well. Additionally, in Chinese culture, well-meaning imitation is the best compliment. As long as Keziah wore a qipao to prom with an appreciation for the beauty of the dress in the way she did, she was not disparaging the culture but rather showing her love for the culture in the most accepted way. Despite qipao’s short and oppressive history and contemporary Chinese people’s casual stance on it as a garment, Keziah’s critics may still argue that all of these don’t change the fact that qipao is still considered an influential Chinese clothing. And by recognizing this dress as cultural attire but still choosing to wear it to prom, Keziah committed cultural appropriation as she took what clearly doesn’t belong to her culture to her own benefit.
However, upon further examination, we can see that qipao is also not culturally exclusive, as Keziah’s critics suggested. Instead, its creation was a revolutionary attempt in Chinese feminism’s history related to cultural adaptation and liberation. What people don’t realize is that qipao first came into existence relatively recently, just around the 1920s, when full-scale reconstruction was happening both socially and culturally in China. The Qing dynasty, along with the closed-door policy and more than two thousand years of China’s monarchy, had just been overthrown and the New Culture Movement held by intellectuals; students sprang up with a rallying pursuit for democracy and science in which they denounced the old ways, especially the oppression of women. In the past, women were bound by cumbersome costumes and became ornaments of men’s appreciation. Inspired by the great progress achieved by suffragettes and feminists in the west, Chinese feminist precursors started to call for dress reform. Incorporating the western style of tailoring into Machu flag dress, they managed to create the modern-day qipao, which marks the introduction of a more westernized lifestyle. Thus, qipao from the start embodied cultural integration rather than exclusion. Villainizing a foreign girl for wearing a qipao to prom would only lead to more separation and suspicions between the two cultures, which essentially undermines the underlying meaning of qipao.
Rather, we should be pleased to see that Keziah recognized the beauty of qipao, because the fact that a foreign girl appreciated qipao so much that she wore it to her prom is the perfect validation for its intercultural essence. Keziah’s critics may still argue that Keziah simply appreciates the look of qipao instead of its intercultural essence. Critics may argue that, although qipao may have been created based on the desire of cultural integration, it was created because the given context of Chinese society one hundred years ago needed reconstruction and liberation; nowadays, it is just iconic Chinese clothing, which is inappropriate for foreigners to wear. To argue against Keziah’s critics, we need to examine the fundamental question: whether they as overseas Chinese American people have the right to criticize Keziah for cultural appropriation. In my opinion, if someone only possesses the racial identity of Chinese lineage but does not respect the history and cultural significance behind qipao, they don’t have the right to claim cultural ownership and criticize others of cultural appropriation. Only those who have familiarized themselves with Chinese culture and actually observe everyday life in China can make such judgment, and that judgment, as we all know, is against what Keziah’s critics proposed.
Looking back, Keziah’s critics truly overreacted. What motivated them, perhaps, is that Keziah’s behavior constituted a threat that they may lose an exclusive right to claim what they considered to be an identity symbol of their own other than their skin color. But they set the bar too low for what is to be determined as cultural appropriation. Not only does this lead to more divisions between cultures, but it also propagates racial discrimination, because the Chinese Americans who want to wear qipao don’t need to have a thorough understanding of the culture: they don’t need to know the oppressive history of the Qing Dynasty, nor do they need to know of its intercultural essence, yet they held a white girl to a higher standard, accusing her of cultural appropriation while ignoring the true culture behind qipao itself. Instead of being so antagonistic, we should try to appreciate more of the interconnectedness between cultures and traditions in this more and more multicultural world, just like how Keziah showed her love for the qipao. Qipao itself has different cultural facets that trace their roots to Han and Machu culture as well as western ideologies. Based on its mixed origin, it is fair to assert that no ethnic group can ascribe it to their own. Instead, it should be a garment that could be shared and appreciated cross-culturally.
Works Cited
Greenbaum, Daniella. “Nonsensical critics are accusing an 18-year-old girl of cultural appropriation and racism — and they're missing something much bigger.” INSIDER. 2 May 2018.
Qin, Amy. “Teenager’s Prom Dress Stirs Furor in U.S. — but Not in China.” The New York Times. 2 May 2018.
Chunyang Tao is from Chengdu, China and studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.