{"id":14130,"date":"2009-10-10T11:26:47","date_gmt":"2009-10-10T16:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=14130"},"modified":"2009-10-11T00:15:24","modified_gmt":"2009-10-11T05:15:24","slug":"asians-as-kitschy-kitchen-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/10\/10\/asians-as-kitschy-kitchen-items\/","title":{"rendered":"Asians as Kitschy Kitchen Items"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tracy H. and a friend were shopping in some\u00a0expensive kitchen\/housewares stores in Kits, an upscale\u00a0 neighborhood on the west side of Vancouver. In one store they came upon a display of kitchen utensils (salt and pepper shakers, timers, and so on) designed to look like Asians, complete with slanted eyes and what Tracy calls “rice-paddy hats”:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0724\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0725\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0726\"<\/p>\n

Here’s another set in the display case:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0727\"<\/p>\n

So we have a display case in an expensive store full of utensils meant to be cutesy and funny, and where items shaped like monkeys, rabbits, faceless blobs, and Asians are all presented as equivalent adorable, humorous, hip options.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Commenter London Mabel gave us a link to the National Palace Museum<\/a> in Taiwan’s website; the Asian kitchen utensils are part of the “Chin Family Series’:<\/p>\n

Drawing his inspiration from a picture of the young Chin seen on a visit to the NPM, one of ALESSI\u2019s main designers Stefano Giovannoni created The Chin Family series\u2013 \u201cMr. Chin\u201d and other items in the series including the salt & peppershaker set \u201cMr. and Mrs. Chin\u201d, the eggcup and timer…Customers around the globe will have the opportunity to take home a piece of ancient Chinese history brought tastefully into fashion!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what do you think? Cute? Neutral? Problematic? Does it make a difference that the majority of people who see them probably don’t know about the context and just seem them as Asian-themed utensils? Would people of Asian descent living in the U.S., Canada, and other countries possibly feel differently about seeing things like this on display or sale than the directors of the museum?<\/p>\n

Other examples of modern racial caricatures on sale: golliwogs<\/a>, mammie souvenirs<\/a> in Georgia, and an Icelandic reproduction of 10 Little Negro Boys<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tracy H. and a friend were shopping in some\u00a0expensive kitchen\/housewares stores in Kits, an upscale\u00a0 neighborhood on the west side of Vancouver. In one store they came upon a display of kitchen utensils (salt and pepper shakers, timers, and so on) designed to look like Asians, complete with slanted eyes and what Tracy calls “rice-paddy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[279,285,1759],"class_list":["post-14130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-objectification","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14130"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14148,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14130\/revisions\/14148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}