中国六盘水，女性穿着中国传统服装旗袍。 VCG, VIA GETTY IMAGES
AMY QIN
翻译：Jowii、陈亦亭
哲学园鸣谢
犹他州的高中生凯齐娅·道姆(Keziah Daum)穿中式连衣裙参加舞会一事引起了一片哗然，但不是因为裙子本身的修身裁剪或高开叉。
After Ms. Daum, 18, shared pictures on social media of her prom night, a Twitter user named Jeremy Lam hotly responded in a post that has been retweeted nearly 42,000 times.
在18岁的道姆把舞会当晚的照片发到社交媒体上后，一个名叫杰里米·林(Jeremy Lam)的Twitter用户发帖进行了激烈回应。此人的帖子已被转发近4.2万次。
“My culture is NOT” your prom dress, he wrote, adding profanity for effect.
“我的文化不是”你的舞会礼服，他写道。为了加强效果，他还说了脏话。
“I’m proud of my culture,” he wrote in another post. “For it to simply be subject to American consumerism and cater to a white audience, is parallel to colonial ideology.”
“我为自己的文化感到骄傲，”他在另一篇帖子中写道。“让它完全臣服于美国的消费主义，迎合白人受众，等同于殖民思想。”
Other Twitter users who described themselves as Asian-American seized on Ms. Daum’s dress — a form-fitting red cheongsam (also known as a qipao) with black and gold ornamental designs — as an example of cultural appropriation, a sign of disrespect and exploitation.
另外一些自称亚裔美国人的Twitter用户认为，道姆穿的这条裙子——一条带黑色和金色装饰设计的紧身红旗袍——是文化挪用的例子，是不尊重和剥削的表现。
“This isn’t ok,” wrote someone with the user name Jeannie. “I wouldn’t wear traditional Korean, Japanese or any other traditional dress and I’m Asian. I wouldn’t wear traditional Irish or Swedish or Greek dress either. There’s a lot of history behind these clothes. Sad.”
“不能这样，”一个用户名为珍妮(Jeannie)的写道。“虽然我是亚裔，但我不会穿传统的韩国、日本服装或其他任何传统服装。我也不会穿传统的爱尔兰、瑞典或希腊服装。这些衣服背后有着厚重的历史。难过。”
When the furor reached Asia, though, many seemed to be scratching their heads. Far from being critical of Ms. Daum, who is not Chinese, many people in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan proclaimed her choice of the traditional high-necked dress as a victory for Chinese culture.
但当这种愤怒扩散到亚洲时，很多人似乎不得其解。在中国大陆、香港和台湾，很多人不仅不指责并非华裔的道姆，还称她选择传统的高领旗袍是中国文化的胜利。
“I am very proud to have our culture recognized by people in other countries,” said someone called Snail Trail, commenting on a post of the Utah episode by a popular account on WeChat, the messaging and social media platform, that had been read more than 100,000 times.
“It’s ridiculous to criticize this as cultural appropriation,” Zhou Yijun, a Hong Kong-based cultural commentator, said in a telephone interview. “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?”
“我觉得把这个事情上升到cultural appropriation（文化挪用）这种这种层次来批评有点荒谬的，”香港的文化评论家周一军（音）接受电话采访时说。“这件事情站在一个中国人的角度看就是，外国女性其实穿旗袍也挺好看的，为什么不能穿？觉得好看觉得舒服为什么不能穿呢?”
If anything, the uproar surrounding Ms. Daum’s dress prompted many Chinese to reflect on examples of cultural appropriation in their own country. “So does that mean when we celebrate Christmas and Halloween it’s also cultural appropriation?” asked one WeChat user, Larissa.
Others were quick to point out that the qipao, as it is known in China, was introduced by the Manchus, an ethnic minority group from China’s northeast — implying that the garment was itself appropriated by the majority Han Chinese. In its original form, the dress was worn in a baggy style, mostly by upper-class women during the Qing dynasty, which ruled China for more than 250 years, until 1912.
另一些人很快指出，旗袍是由中国东北的少数民族满族引入的。这意味着这种衣服本身就被人口占多数的汉族挪用了。早期，旗袍款式宽松。在统治中国逾250年，直到1912年才灭亡的清朝，穿旗袍的大多是上层阶级女性。
It was only in the 1920s and ’30s, when Western influence began seeping into China, that the qipao was reinvented to become the seductive, body-hugging dress that many think of today. For many cinephiles, it has become inextricably associated with Maggie Cheung, the actress who wore a stunning array of cheongsams in Wong Kar-wai’s 2000 film “In the Mood for Love.”
到20世纪二三十年代西方的影响开始渗透到中国时，旗袍才被重新设计成现在很多人认为性感的紧身款式。对很多影迷来说，旗袍和演员张曼玉(Maggie Cheung)密不可分。在王家卫(Wong Kar-wai)2000年的电影《花样年华》(In the Mood for Love)中，张曼玉有大量令人惊艳的旗袍造型。
These days, it is rare to see Chinese women wearing qipaos in the street. Western “fast fashion” has taken over, though the qipao has made something of a comeback among some official figures, like the country’s first lady, Peng Liyuan.
如今，很少看见中国女人穿旗袍上街。虽然在中国第一$$$$$这样的官方人物身上，旗袍似乎有所回归，但西方的“快时尚”已经占领了这里。
“To Chinese, it’s not sacred and it’s not that meaningful,” said Hung Huang, a Beijing-based writer and fashion blogger, in an interview. “Nowadays, if you see a woman wearing a qipao, she’s probably a waitress in a restaurant or a bride.”
“对中国人来说，它并不神圣并且也没那么有意义，”北京的作家、时尚博主洪晃在采访中说，“现在，如果你看到一个穿旗袍的女人，她可能是餐馆服务员或是新娘。”
The uproar surrounding the prom dress highlights America’s growing — and increasingly complex — conversation about race.
围绕着这件舞会礼服所起的骚动突显了美国日渐增多，并且愈加复杂的种族谈话。
Several recent episodes have shown that Asians and Asian-Americans do not always see eye to eye.
最近的几起事件都表明，亚洲人和亚裔美国人的看法并非总是完全一致。
Diversity was certainly on the minds of the filmmakers behind the 2016 Chinese-American coproduction “The Great Wall” when they filled the movie with so-called Chinese elements — a predominantly Chinese cast, story line and filming locations. In doing so, they addressed a diversity concern in China, where moviegoers are increasingly sensitive to Hollywood’s tendency to cast Chinese actors in bit parts. But after the release of the movie trailer, another diversity issue arose: Several prominent Asian-Americans criticized the filmmakers for casting Matt Damon in the lead role, as one of the leaders of a Chinese army, likening the decision to “whitewashing.”
2016年的中美合拍片《长城》(The Great Wall)的制片人们心里肯定有多样性的考虑。他们让电影充满了所谓的中国元素——以中国的演员、故事线和拍摄地点为主。他们以这样的方式，来应对中国的多样性考虑，因为中国的观众也对好莱坞在小角色中选用中国演员的做法越来越敏感。但是在电影的预告片公布后，又出现了另一个多样性的问题：几位知名亚裔美国人批评制片人选用马特·达蒙(Matt Damon)为主角，扮演中国军队的领导人之一，他们把这一决定比作“洗白”(whitewashing)。
More recently, the debate has resurfaced with the planned American release, in August, of the film adaptation of “Crazy Rich Asians,” based on a series of novels about the lives of wealthy families in Singapore. The casting has generated some controversy, in part over the biracial actor chosen as the male romantic lead.
前不久，定档八月在美国上映的《疯狂的亚洲富人》(Crazy Rich Asians)电影版本又再次引发了争议。它改编自有关新加坡富裕家庭生活的系列小说。演员选角引发了一些争议，部分是因为选用了一个混血演员来饰演浪漫的男主角。
While the film is promoted as having an all-Asian cast, the Singapore journalist and activist Kirsten Han wrote in a 2017 essay, “the focus is specifically on characters and faces of East Asian descent (as dictated by the book).”
“This is already a misrepresentation of Singapore at the most basic level, obscuring the Malay, Indian and Eurasian (and more) populations who make the country the culturally rich and unique place that it is,” she wrote. “A continent as massive as Asia can never be as simple as the stereotypes imposed upon us.”
“这本身就是在最基础层面上对新加坡的一种误读，掩盖了马来人、印度人和欧亚混血（还有许多）这些让这个国家的文化丰富而独特的人，”她写道。“像亚洲这样广阔的大陆，绝不可能像强加在我们身上的刻板印象那么简单。”
Back in the United States, Ms. Daum, overwhelmed with the sudden wave of both praise and condemnation, was not backing down.
在美国，被突如其来的赞扬和谴责淹没的道姆并没有退缩。
“To everyone who says I’m ignorant, I fully understand everyone’s concerns and views on my dress,” she wrote on Twitter. “I mean no harm. I am in no way being discriminative or racist. I’m tired of all the backlash and hate when my only intent was to show my love.”
“对于那些说我无知的人，我完全理解大家的顾虑以及对我这条裙子的看法，”她在Twitter上写道。“我没有恶意。我没有任何歧视或种族主义。这些反对和仇恨让只是想表达喜爱之意的我感到厌倦。”
附录（来源公号：吉田卡）
文化挪用到底错了吗？
这个议题被多次讨论，印度裔英国作家 Kenan Malik 在纽约时报上发表了一篇为文化挪用辩护的文章（In Defense of Cultural Appropriation）。作者为了论证其观点，不惜搬出 Elvis Presley 作为事例，「Elvis Presley 就是在挪用非裔美国人的音乐，你能说这是错的吗？」他将文化挪用认为是一种混乱的“文化互动（Cultural Interaction），而边缘化文化通过主流群体的表现手法得以传播不是更好？（黑人歌手 Chuck Berry 曾被白人电台封禁，“种族音乐”是二十世纪中期摇滚音乐史上的一个曲折过程，「猫王」Elvis Presley 翻唱他的作品走红。）
真的更好吗？
Quartz 撰稿人 Jenni Avins 认为：「借鉴其他文化本没有什么大不了，就像我每天用咖啡机弄一杯意式咖啡，我不觉得有什么羞愧。但文化挪用之所以被认为不妥是因为这是一种主流群体对边缘化群体文化的窃夺行为，只有单方面获利，而这个窃夺的直接目的是娱乐和时尚，最为关键的一点是——主流群体在进行这个行为时并没有得到任何形式的群体认可，直接造成少数群体的不愉快，他们感觉被冒犯了。」根据 Everyday Feminism 对文化挪用做出进一步的解释：即主流文化导向下的人或品牌从被主流群体压制的非主流文化中摄取文化元素。文化挪用不合理之处即在于主流群体对边缘化群体的文化窃夺是以娱乐和时尚为目的性的，没有经过少数文化群体的认可，冒犯他人，同时也没有深入这个群体的文化而带来了误导，贸贸然地将其取之作为商业盈利工具。
不过，时装评论人 Osman Ahmed 也有他的见解，他将文化挪用视为中性词，既有「积极」之处也有「不当」之处。他认为立意良好的挪用能变为积极的力量创造文化间交流、丰富设计师、艺术家与形象制造者，甚至包括厨师、电影工作者和建筑师们可用的表达语汇，能成为推动文化向前发展、推倒疆界、化解分裂的动力——而不是加剧这种分裂。而真正要鞭挞的应该是「不当挪用」（mis-appropriation）——表面化的、带有剥削性质的挪用。
但，似乎无论如何，时尚产业好像已经离不开文化挪用了。
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