Hasnain says:

“In effect, media coverage has run with the same reductive orientalist cliché peddled by the Congee Queen: that congee, just like Chinese culture itself, is rigidly traditional, exotic, and unfamiliar to America; that it is steeped in history; and that any change or adjustment is to be regarded as blasphemy. In propagating a narrative that slow-cooked rice and water is considered sacred by Asians, while leaving out the more colorful and trendy aspects of congee’s culinary identity, media coverage does a disservice to readers by failing to shine a light on how inaccurate Karen Taylor’s portrayal of Chinese congee really is, while also failing to explain the more insidious essence of cultural appropriation.

Viewed another way, the flattened story allowed defenders of Taylor to portray her critics as an “Asian mob” canceling a white entrepreneur in a case of overblown cultural gatekeeping.”

Posted on 2021-08-04T15:45:20+0000