Whang-od and Cultural Appropriation in the Philippines.

Cultural appropriation is an interesting thing. Without it a culture stagnates, but the blatant use of another's culture especially for profit just seems icky. The proper term would be cultural misappropriation is these instances. This conversation is starting here in the country with Whang-od going to Manila FAME. This issue boils down to RESPECT because we are all guilty of cultural appropriation in one form or another but what makes something inappropriate is the lack of respect afforded to the owners of that culture.

This is an issue that I struggle with and maybe rationalize a bit because I did go with friends to Buscalan and got tattooed but the reason why I chose not to get a tattoo from Whang-od, and instead got it from her grand-niece apprentice, Grace, was because I was getting a Mangyan motif as a design. It felt disrespectful to ask Whang-od to tattoo a non-Cordillera tribe design. Grace grew up in the time were there were satellite TVs in their village, her name is no longer a Butbut name instead a Christian name. She was closer to us culturally, a hodge-podge of Christian values, a bit of Hollywood and Tagalog culture, and their local traditions. She is also Filipino instead of just fully Butbut, like Whang-od.

To be Filipino is to be a mix of cultures, after all we are a bunch of tribes on a group of islands named after a Spanish king, we are the embodiment of cultural appropriation. We have dreadlocked rastas with full body tattoos that drink huge amounts of Red Horse. We have anime-kpop-freaks in full-costume who will speak to you in Japanese, Korean, English, Bisaya, Tagalog and Elvish. We have super-skilled dream-catcher makers who have never met a Native American. We have people, like me, who practice a Brazilian version of a Japanese martial art. The challenge for us is to be respectful these cultures."Am I respecting the culture I am taking from?" This is a hard question we should ask. As Jeremy Lin wrote as a response to Keynon Martin calling out his dreadlocks: "At the end of the day, I appreciate that I have dreads and you have Chinese tattoos [because] I think its a sign of respect. And I think as minorities, the more that we appreciate each other's cultures, the more we influence mainstream society."

So did Manila FAME respect Whang-od? Maybe, maybe not, I was not there and I don't know the full deal but that should be the question we should be ask instead of throwing accusations of cultural appropriation everywhere.