« Everybody Loves the JabbaWockeeZ |
Main
| 3 Pairs of Tickets for Silk Screen, Pittsburgh »
The song’s not bad; it's quirky with catchy loops that could easily get it heavy rotation at hipster bars and art exhibit after-parties. But I can’t help but wonder…
Is she Asian American?
I couldn’t find any information on her ethnic make-up, and photos aren't always accurate gauges of ethnicity either. At a mere glance, she appears to be Caucasian. Her bio simply states that she’s an American who moved to Japan to teach English and now lives and creates music in the southern city of Kyushu.
I realized I wanted to know if she had Asian roots because she’s pretty much taking on a Japanese identity, which could be seen as problematic if she is, in actuality, an American Caucasian person (see: Steven Seagal).
On “KitsuneBi,” the artist says, "In folklore here, foxes play an important role...Something that really appealed to me is this ancient notion of kitsune-tsuki, which is when a woman becomes possessed by a fox...The woodlands have this kind of ancient, quiet mystery...there's always this feeling that you're being watched, but it's not a threatening feeling. I suddenly was overwhelmed by this weird feeling that I was being transformed into a fox.”
So what do you all think? Appropriation of an Asian culture, or an American musician that just really digs Japan? Does her race/ethnicity matter in terms of the image she's created as an artist?
May 8, 2008
Is Eri Chan Appropriating an Asian Culture?
NPR's Second Stage music section profiles American ex-pat Lizzie Moore who lives in Japan and performs Asian-inflected indie/electro music under the name Eri Chan. Her debut album - entitled Fire Fox - has a lead track "KitsuneBi" ("fire fox" in Japanese) and much of the album explores, in the artist's words, "the thoughts of a girl living in Japan, fascinated by folklore and possessed by a fox."The song’s not bad; it's quirky with catchy loops that could easily get it heavy rotation at hipster bars and art exhibit after-parties. But I can’t help but wonder…
Is she Asian American?
I couldn’t find any information on her ethnic make-up, and photos aren't always accurate gauges of ethnicity either. At a mere glance, she appears to be Caucasian. Her bio simply states that she’s an American who moved to Japan to teach English and now lives and creates music in the southern city of Kyushu.
I realized I wanted to know if she had Asian roots because she’s pretty much taking on a Japanese identity, which could be seen as problematic if she is, in actuality, an American Caucasian person (see: Steven Seagal).
On “KitsuneBi,” the artist says, "In folklore here, foxes play an important role...Something that really appealed to me is this ancient notion of kitsune-tsuki, which is when a woman becomes possessed by a fox...The woodlands have this kind of ancient, quiet mystery...there's always this feeling that you're being watched, but it's not a threatening feeling. I suddenly was overwhelmed by this weird feeling that I was being transformed into a fox.”
So what do you all think? Appropriation of an Asian culture, or an American musician that just really digs Japan? Does her race/ethnicity matter in terms of the image she's created as an artist?
Posted by sylvie at May 8, 2008 10:59 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/cgi-bin/blog/mt-tb.cgi/1129
6 Comments
Leave a comment
Hyphen is a nonprofit mag with an all-volunteer staff that does it all for the love. Support us by subscribing!
Appropriation of an Asian culture? How presumptuous. This is an American resident of Japan, and you have the audacity to question her street cred based on some fuzzy notion of ethnicity?
Are you AA? Do you "appropriate" Western Culture?
I think "fuzzy" is the perfect word, which is why I posed the questions of "is this problematic?" and "does it even matter?" so I could get some other opinions. Admittedly, I personally would find it problematic if she has no Asian roots especially in light of her self-described "obsession" with Japanese folklore. I'm not saying I'm part of the Ethnicity Street Cred Squad; just pointing out that it's a slippery slope. And yes, I'm Asian American, born and raised in the U.S. I guess I can't appropriate a culture I was born into?
she sort of sounds like a... gwen. btw has she released those harajuku girls yet? anyway, i do that too sometimes, with books, music, people writing about china, for example. don't know if it's wrong of me, but i measure how much trust i put in a written piece depending on how much i know about the author's background.
how goes the research? does she have asian roots?
sylvie:
You're completely missing the point here: it doesn't matter what her ethnicity is. She lives and works in Japan. What on earth could be "problematic" about it?
What's presumptious is you're applying racist double standards: she can't appropriate a culture she immigrated into? Japanese culture doesn't belong to you or indeed to anybody not residing here in Japan.
Hi okazakiOm,
I think what's problematic is that taking on the artistic expression of another culture is a bit unilateral. Non-Asians can appropriate Asian culture easily (Gwen Stefani's Harajuku affinity, David Carradine in "Kung Fu") regardless of residence in a country and have a certain cachet, yet I don't think it necessarily works in reverse. I think a person from Asia coming to the States as an artist to take on expressly "American" art forms wouldn't be received as warmly. If Eri Chan were a Japanese woman that came to live and work in the U.S., changed her name to Joan Smith, and made songs about Paul Bunyan and other American mythologies, I'm not sure she'd be as successful.
sylvie:
With all due respect, I really think you're grasping at straws here. There are numerous examples of Asian artists working in the West in traditional Western mediums.
And again, we're talking about Japan here, not the US. I also don't think that this particular woman is particularily successful. Why don't you pick on Jero, the black enka singer who is successful? Or does his having a Japanese (or possibly nikkei?) grandmother give him permission work in a Japanese medium?
I think you're projecting your biases on a culture that isn't yours, and that you don't really understand.