Teenager’s dress sense shows cultural appreciation
An 18-year-old US student who wore a cheongsam to her school prom is accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ on Twitter, but then Chinese rally to her defence
When you share something on social media, you are running the gamut of possible reactions from positive feedback to bullying.
Even so, if an American teenager had not inadvertently touched off a media storm with a photo of her choice of attire for a rite of passage, you could not make it up.
We are referring, of course, to Keziah Daum, the 18-year-old from Utah who wore a form-fitting red cheongsam or traditional Chinese qipao to her high school prom – and was so proud of it she posted a photograph on Twitter to share with her friends.
The storm broke with a tweet by someone of Chinese heritage called Jeremy Lam, who posted: “My culture is not your [expletive] prom dress.” This was retweeted more than 40,000 times in the following days. “I’m proud of my culture,” he wrote in another post.
“For it simply to be subject to American consumerism and cater to a white audience is parallel to colonial ideology.”