My stance on Israel

When it comes to Israel as a nation, it doesn’t really hold much interest to me even as a Christian. It’s also kind of surprising why when it comes to listing the countries that persecute Christians, Israel gets written out as if it were this paradise that eagerly welcomes them despite persecuting Palestinian Christians a lot. When I think about it this way, Vietnam and China aren’t really that bad. They even allow some Christian websites to exist, I even frequent those by the way. It kind of reeks of racism of the model minority sort where it seems Israel and Jews are seen as being able to fit into (white) Protestantism better, whereas Vietnam and China are seen as suspicious. Even Catholic-majority Philippines is sometimes seen in this light.

But I still think both Vietnam and China aren’t really this bad, both of them are interesting in their own right. I could also say similar things about Indonesia and it too allows some Christian websites to exist, so it reeks of othering East Asian countries a lot whilst putting Israel on a pedestal despite the bad things it does. I even think my point about Jews being a model minority holds water, especially among Christians where they’re seen as an example to follow. They really don’t do this with sub-Saharan African countries, despite many of them having substantial Christian populations these days and even following their beliefs to a T. We should even be thankful that Ghana actively bans homosexuality, the very thing many conservative Christians hate.

But not a lot of Christians praise Ghana the way they do with Israel, which means despite Israel condoning the things they hate, I think they like Israel secretly because they want something western to remind them of home. Ghana may follow their beliefs to a T but because it has a black majority population, it’s never going to be praised a lot by many Christians. Nigeria gets singled out for persecuting Christians, but not Israel even if the former freely allows pastors to write devotionals on websites like the Nigerian Voice. I don’t think a single Israeli website has devotionals like that. Even both China and Indonesia have devotional websites, which is saying because they’re not as bad as Christians make them out to be.

Especially western Christians since I feel the way they perceive those countries is firmly rooted in Orientalist racism, because Israel is in close proximity to white Protestantism that they routinely excuse or ignore all the bad things it does. Whereas countries like China, Vietnam and Nigeria are held up to a higher standard, even if they allow Christian websites to exist and they can be freely accessed to if you know where to look. The double standards are pretty obvious that they ignore the bad things Israel does, but scrutinise China and Nigeria for whatever they do that they’re never going to have that model minority glow they give to Israel.

I believe that among Christian circles, Jews become the model minority to end all model minorities. It’s really not that hard to look at them this way that a good number of them are pretty successful, seemingly adhere to the values that make them successful in Christian circles and so on whilst the Chinese and Vietnamese are seen as dubious at any point. Even if both China and Vietnam have their faults, they’re not really as bad as they make them out to be. Even if Israel has its virtues and stuff, it’s not as good as they make it out to be. It’s like that in animal welfare circles and the like where they often single out East Asian countries for animal cruelty, yet they don’t do this with European countries even if they’re just as bad.

Germany even has many people who distrust dogs to varying degrees, ranging from sheer hatred when it comes to dog poisoning (so much so that Giftkoeder Radar is a thing) to mere apprehension that many hunters feel towards stray dogs. You could make an argument for Germany being a nation of dog haters that there was a website called Gegenhund (literally ‘antidog’) and a magazine for dog haters called Kot und Koeter (Poo and Pooches), something not many Anglophone westerners care to realise but that would mean it’s really not that dog-friendly. It’s not as dog-friendly as they make it out to be, if it weren’t for hunters shooting owned dogs and people poisoning dogs a lot.

So when it comes to Israel having a Christian-friendly reputation, it really doesn’t when it comes to Palestinian Christians. This is compounded by the strong anti-Arab sentiment many Christians harbour in some way, regardless if there are any Christians there and if there are any Palestinian Christians they’d probably ignore them altogether. They really don’t care if their churches get bombed and destroyed by Israelis, if because many Christians spoil them a lot and ignore their bad actions. I even think the way Israel is treated by Christian Zionists makes the country something of a spoilt brat in the Middle East, because it often gets what it wants and people enable it a lot.

So excusing somebody for their bad actions and letting them be relieved of the consequences they reap doesn’t feel like loving them, it’s more like enabling their bad habits to continue regardless of how bad the consequences turn out to be. It’s pretty much a form of favouritism where their bad actions will always be excused or ignored by many Christians (or people in general), whereas those affected are always blamed for whatever they do. But the thing with disciplining somebody for their actions is to tell them what they’re doing is wrong, that their actions have consequences is something Christians surprisingly don’t do often even with the people they like.

This doesn’t make Christianity look good and it’s enough to sour people on the church, if because those within the church always make excuses for their favourites’ bad actions. Even if telling them that their actions have consequences should be enough to motivate them to do better, if love involves disciplining others then they should make them face the consequences of their acts. Especially their favourites but that involves holding them to the same standard, that means having to be firm to them if they always do the wrong thing. That means they have to grow up or something, since they can’t go on like this for long. I wonder if the real reason why Christians ignore Israelis abusing Palestinian Christians is the reason why they tend to excuse abusers in general.

Perhaps this is also why abuse is such a persistent problem in Christianity, they never let abusers face the consequences of their actions even if it motivates them to do better. They shouldn’t go on like this, if because what they do is bad. Favouritism never does people favours because it involves upholding a double standard, when in general karma is no respecter of people regardless if they’re good or bad. The sun shines to those who’re good and bad, that one reaps is what one sows should also apply to abusers in particular. This could explain why they enable Israel to harm Palestinian Christians, if because many Christians enable or excuse abusers a lot. They don’t really discipline them for every bad act they do.

If God can be hard to the Israelites for sinning a lot, then Christians should do the same with Israelis. But that would mean not many Christians are godly, in the sense where they fail to discipline their favourites whenever they do something bad. They shouldn’t be stumbling blocks to those who’re susceptible to sin, especially if it’s a sin they’re particularly vulnerable to. Giving grace is one thing, having them face the consequences of their actions is another. But the inability to discipline their favourites is why these problems persist, because they think it’s not loving if they actually did this. Even if it makes them reconsider their actions and get better or rely on God.

But I don’t think many Christians will be comfortable with this really.

American Life

I feel some of the reasons why America is called Mystery Babylon by God is that not only does he know its real fate and nature, but that given its love of freedom it’s gotten too lax on things like Mormonism and astrology. Especially Appalachian astrology as it is practised surprisingly in the Bible Belt, you have calendars that include astrological diagrams in some way. As what God said in the Bible, we shouldn’t use our freedom to sin. But apparently America either encouraged or enabled this, being unable to stop astrologers from entering it.

I guess if Celestial’s prophecies about America being lost to time and even totally drowned as Atlantis was are to be believed, this is the comeuppance for the things America has done and never repented in any way. That America is apostate in her words says a lot about its spiritual condition*, though I’d say that much of Europe is reprobate. As in Europe is the part of Eurasia that mass converted to Christianity early on, it was Christian from the dark ages to the early half of the 20th century. So it was Christian for a long time, then it lost its way the more anti-clericalism and secularism grew. To the point where all of it becomes Russian territory.

If much of America were to drown in the sea, with very little land that’s left that will be given to other countries, it would be real hard to find it in the near future if anybody bothers going there at all. The only people who’d remember America as it was will be old people, this will decline with every generation with Millennials’ grandchildren never knowing it. We might as well say goodbye to places such as New York City, Minneapolis and Detroit if they’re all going to disappear anyways, the only people who’d have artefacts from America are those who got them before it sinks in to the sea in some way.

If island nations risk being completely drowned, America might fall into this trap if God allows it to be physically halved and then drown anyways. Even before this happens, he will still undo America in other ways. First, he will undo American geopolitical and cultural influences wherever they went. He will make the nations resent America for what it has done to them before, whether if it’s the Philippines, Vietnam or Nigeria for things like slavery. Then they will turn to other superpowers more, they become so heavily influenced by those that very little of American influence remains.

Someone’s children and grandchildren will never really know what it was like at the height of its power, because it was both undone and America will disappear into the ocean or sea altogether. Who will remember Hollywood when it’s gone in some form or another? Even before much of America drowns, part of its land will be given to Canada and another to Mexico. In due time, Alaska will be incorporated into Canada and California back to Mexico in years. Even if portions of American land may arguably remain, they will be given to its neighbours and much of America will still disappear.

If America does disappear into the sea altogether, especially due to a powerful tsunami or two hitting both the east and west coasts, it would be hard finding where Virginia was before. Who will bother finding New York, Minneapolis and Chicago when they’re destroyed beyond recognition? America will be a ghost to everybody else in the future, it did exist but at the same time it’ll be hard to find where it actually was. Nobody else other than pensioners will know where America was, so much so that Americans who have immigrated elsewhere will tasked with writing about it in some way.

We might as well let go of nearly anything American as it’s not good for our spiritual health, the few things that remain are either practical, edify the soul or good enough to be used and perused without damaging one’s spiritual health.

*Let’s not forget that some early American presidents did anything to omit any mention of God in their version of the Bible, so the well was already poisoned during America’s early days as a nation.

American Imperialism, Disney Style

There’s a book called ‘How to Read Donald Duck’ and it does examine how the Carl Barks stories espouse a form of colonialism, especially whenever ‘exotic’ locales are concerned where they are often exoticised and othered in ways they wouldn’t be when left to their own. It’s like how the Africans in the Carl Barks stories are portrayed in a demeaning, primitive manner and a cursory glance at African countries in those days show that there is room for modern technology. There are newspapers, radio stations, television channels and book publishers in African countries after all, then comes the Internet and it’s no different really.

I myself have perused African newspapers and radio stations, I still do to this day but for the purpose of worshipping God. Disney, as an American multinational corporation, has multiple branches almost anywhere in the world. It has many divisions dedicated to different media in whatever permutation they appear in, it even has a series of radio stations called Radio Disney and they’re still a thing in Latin America, including Ariel Dorfman’s native Chile (just type emisoras.cl/disney). Disney comics used to be a big thing in both the Americas and are still a thing in places like Brazil and Europe.

The Disney comics are a major focus of Dorfman’s thesis, though if he wrote this book this time he would’ve certainly included Radio Disney and critiqued it the same way. It’s not hard to say that even when Disney has improved itself when it comes to portraying foreign countries and culture, there’s still the potential for othering in ways it never intended to. Looking at one of its purchases like Marvel, it’s not hard to think some of Dorfman’s arguments could also be applied to characters like Black Panther and Storm to a frightening extent.

Because a chunk of Dorfman’s thesis is dedicated to the global north’s impression of global south countries, it’s not hard for one to come to the same conclusion considering Marvel has done the same thing. It’s like how someone has pointed out the problems with the way Marvel named its Vietnamese characters, it’s not that China didn’t influence Southeast Asia at all (it did to varying degrees depending on the country). But that their names are kind of strange and strangely spelt to anybody familiar with Vietnamese, sort of like how one came to this conclusion concerning Karma.

She has the ability to influence and possess people’s minds but what’s not brought up is that Marvel missed an opportunity to celebrate the Year of the Cat, it’s a thing in the Vietnamese zodiac and one that replaces the Year of the Rabbit for some reason, just so it could have a variant cover of Karma hanging out with cats. But this makes you wonder if most Marvel writers actually knew about Vietnam and Vietnamese culture in specific to do this, the best this writer did is to change her name into something realistically Vietnamese (it turned out in-story it’s a big mispronunciation of her real name).

Similar things can be said about Sha Shan Nguyen, who is a Spider-Man character by the way, one wonders why nobody bothered renaming her to San Sang since it sounds close enough (in my opinion as I’ve just started learning Vietnamese). Then we get to Storm or Ororo Munroe, who’s pretty much Marvel’s most famous Kenyan. But also one who’s hardly like actual Kenyans, especially if you actually know Kenya in some way. She doesn’t speak Swahili, Luo or Gikuyu to any degree, she doesn’t even celebrate Boxing Day (which happens every 26 December).

She’s a character who’s pretty much a white person’s idea of an exotic black woman, not so much an actual Kenyan woman which explains why she’s so oddly divorced from Kenyan culture. Also both Disney comics (especially when written by Carl Barks) and Marvel Comics sometimes have stories taking place in made-up Latin American countries, which further exoticises Latin America. It’s kind of shockingly recent for Disney to place its stories in actual Latin American countries, be it Mexico for Coco or Colombia for Encanto. But every now and then it falls back on exotic, made-up countries.

Recently we have Wish, which takes place in an island called Rosas. Though I think it would’ve worked just the same if it was actually set in Spain, despite having never watched the film myself. One would only wonder why does Black Panther have to come from Wakanda when he could’ve come from Cameroon and be Bamileke himself, the very people who even associate leopards with royalty and where fons/chiefs are said to become leopards themselves. Black Panther being an actual Cameroonian wouldn’t hurt really.

Cameroon even has websites which you can peruse such as Camerounweb, Actu Cameroun and more in addition to Radio Balafon (radio.co.cm/radio-balafon/). Or for another matter, Madripoor when it comes to the X-Men stories when Singapore could’ve sufficed. Using actual Latin American, Asian and African countries would have a major advantage, since you could actually look up on them and go there if you’re willing to. You could even peruse their websites, it’s not that hard really since I’ve done this before. If you could use the Internet to find X-Men fanfics, you could do the same with Senegalese websites.

I could go on saying that even when Carl Barks has been proven to be a good writer on most counts, when it comes to portrayals of nonwestern and nonwhite cultures it leaves much to be desired. The Africans in his stories tend to be stereotypical primitives, even when it was written there were actual Africans editing and publishing newspapers, writing for newspapers and using the radio themselves. There are even libraries in African countries, many of which have survived to the present day. Or how Donald and gang have a habit of going to made-up countries, when actual ones could’ve sufficed.

I feel we could’ve gotten stories where Donald and Uncle Scrooge would go to Afghanistan instead of Unsteadystan, though one would only wonder if even when the Internet wasn’t there yet in its present form Barks himself may have been more ignored than one realises and just as prone to Orientalism as his contemporaries at Marvel. So both Disney and Marvel act as agents of American media imperialism, both of them impart an American perspective of things onto non-Americans. Regardless of how suspicious their portrayals of foreigners are, they remain popular to the present day.

Because of the way Disney expanded and acquired brands like Marvel and Lucasfilm, we have an even more potential form of American imperialism as delivered by this company. We don’t just have Disney fabrics, comics, books and toys but also Radio Disney, Disney ships and Disney bridal wear. Even when Disney bothered to improve its portrayal of foreign, often non-western cultures but sometimes it still leaves much to be desired. In some properties like the Marvel stories, Wakanda takes priority over Cameroon and likewise Madripoor over Singapore.

The potential for exoticising, othering foreign regions is there and the precipice will always be there in some form, sometimes it’s so unavoidable that it’s easy to come up with Madripoor, Unsteadystan, Wakanda, Latveria, Rosas, Inca-Blinca, Aztecland and Kumandra than to actually set them in Singapore, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Slovenia, the Canary Islands, Peru, Mexico and Cambodia. It’s always the veneer of exoticism that others actual geopolitical regions, instead of the reality of such places as they actually are. A lot of it seems to come from an insincere interest.

Like trying to be interested in something foreign, but not actually committing to it in any way. I have done this before with China and it’s only now that I’ve gotten actually interested in it (with God’s help), it seems with some Marvel and Disney writers they want something foreign but can’t commit to it in any way. So Doctor Doom comes from Latveria, but not Slovenia (which actually exists by the way). A Yugoslavian Doctor Doom wouldn’t hurt, so would a Cameroonian Black Panther. Or Raya actually coming from Cambodia, but as one said these don’t have any messy real-world baggage.

I guess if Wish was actually set in Spain, one would have to deal with the messy complications of colonisation. After all it was Spain that colonised parts of Africa (Equatorial Guinea and part of Morocco), it was Spain that enslaved many Africans and have them forcibly going to its colonies to do work there. Likewise with Raya not coming from Cambodia, you’d have to deal with America having waged war there. Ethiopia could qualify but to my knowledge, it doesn’t have a tradition of associating leopards with royalty the way Cameroonian Bamilekes do.

Or for another matter, the messy reality of Singapore having seceded from Malaysia and the messy legacy of British colonialism in both countries. It seems with Disney over the years and whatever permutation it appears in, whatever company it has acquired there’s always the precipice of exoticism and othering. Geopolitical regions like Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and southern Europe find themselves exoticised by Disney, real countries could’ve sufficed but you have to deal with the ugly geopolitical reality we live in.

At best, Disney and its vassal companies promote an American way of looking at things. Rather othering and exclusive at that concerning foreign countries at all.

The more practical analogy

I still feel it bears repeating that since both palm civets and dogs are domesticated in East Asia, that their trajectories are going to be similar in ways comparing dogs to ducks wouldn’t do. It’s been speculated that dogs may have started out as vermin at some point, well so were palm civets when it comes to eating coffee berries. Palm civets were eventually given a chance, if because their faeces proved to be valuable when it comes to cultivating coffee beans. The same beans that get grounded into coffee for consumption when dried, this isn’t an exact comparison but then both of them are domesticated in East Asia.

So the comparison to palm civets may hold much better than the comparison to ducks, since ducks to my knowledge were never regarded as vermin at any point in their history. To go a little further with the civet comparison, dogs were historically regarded as vermin until it turned out that they’re useful for guarding and hunting vermin as evidenced by some surviving artefacts in China. Countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines still use dogs for pest control, enough to give you an idea of one of the things they eventually got used for. For a time in China this was also the same thing, given cats have yet to reach Chinese shores and soil.

It’s not an exact analogy but it’s the most practical of them all, since this takes place in East Asia where it’s the same place where civets are currently domesticated there. But that would mean this region played a bigger role in dog domestication than is commonly assumed, that’s if dogs were first domesticated there that some of the earliest uses for them (such as pest control) may have persisted after the start of written history and still is so in some East Asian countries. Surely dogs weren’t used to hunt mammoths in ancient East Asia, in fact they were most likely used for hunting smaller game like rodents.

To the point where the latter may have not only been prehistoric, but also one of the earliest practical uses for dogs. That dogs played a part in some Chinese agrarian folktales suggests that the canine switch to digesting starches more readily may have also occurred in East Asia* as well, if oral traditions turn out to be rooted in historical fact. One way or another, East Asia played a far bigger role in dog domestication than one realises.

*This would roughly coincide with the rise of modern East Asians.

Surface level understanding

I admit being prone to this at some point with Chinese culture and the real reason why they’re into anything that comes in fives is really due to the Five Elements being this deeply enshrined in them, so the Five Elements belief influences everything and anything else. So we have five tastes, five colours, five elements and so on, because they’re connected to the Five Elements in some way or another. So this is what a surface level understanding of a foreign culture looks like, that’s to give you an example that has happened to me before.

When it comes to Islamic countries believing that dogs are dirty, my understanding is that it came from mere common sense especially when it comes to things like echinococcus. Let’s not also forget that in Islam, they permit dogs within reason like hunting and guarding. Some Islamic sects/denominations like the Sufis like dogs very much, so this seems like a surface level understanding of what Islam is. I may not know much about Islam myself, but it’s clear to me that this is a superficial knowledge of Islam. This reveals the person’s ignorance more than Islam itself.

In the case with Iran, it was really dog-centric at some point due to Zoroastrianism (a religion indigenous to Iran) having a high opinion of them when it was the majority religion. When you have a superficial understanding of a certain culture, it either reveals ignorance or contempt or perhaps both. Especially in the case with China, Indonesia and Vietnam where speaking from experience it’s easier to focus on the animal abuse side of things instead of their more compassionate, practical side. Even if animal abuse does exist in those countries, that doesn’t mean everybody else there does it let alone forever.

Let’s not forget that in Chinese history where early on, dogs were used for pest control the same way they come to do with cats. Even today there are likely some Chinese who still use dogs for pest control, which’s also the case in Indonesia and Vietnam really. At other times I feel Chinese attitudes to dogs are incredibly complex, they may not always like dogs but they don’t always hate them either. So you have beliefs where dogs are used to detect evil spirits, but also as the guises of evil spirits themselves when used by sorcerers. Same with cats to some extent, so their attitudes to and use of animals are complex.

I don’t think it can be easily narrowed down to something that seems intrinsic to a given culture, especially something like China since its own attitudes to animals do change over time and may vary depending on the individual. Or for another matter Vietnam to a possible extent, well any other East Asian country really. I also think West Asian countries can’t be easily boiled down to being a bunch of dog haters either, since that hasn’t stopped them from using dogs for guarding, shepherding and hunting so they do see value in having dogs around.

Even if there are animal abusers out there among them, that doesn’t mean all of them are like this to the point where it says more about somebody’s contempt for them than who they really are. Almost nobody in the Anglophone side of the word is alarmed over dog poisoners in Europe, even though they’re a big problem over there to the point where they evidently hate East and West Asians for whatever they do. It’s not about animal welfare, but contemptuous racism and why it hurts those who they’ve targeted.

That shows a superficial understanding of their cultures laced with hatred, to the point where they’re never really interested in animal welfare. It can be overcome, if someone is willing to learn from it.

Dogs as rat-catchers

I feel this has to be brought because if Mainland East Asia is where dogs were first domesticated there, along with the fact that East Asian dogs are substantially more genetically diverse than dogs elsewhere then it should stand that East Asians (and the like) may’ve used dogs longer than Europeans and Africans did. One such usage is having them hunt vermin like rats and mice, which was the case before in Chinese history and possibly earlier than that. Even today, there are likely some Chinese people who have them around for pest control (if they’re allergic to cats but still need something to get rid of mice).

Some Filipinos, Vietnamese and Indonesians do the same thing too, so the likeliest prehistorical purpose of dogs isn’t forgotten to some extent. The odd fact that dog domestication may’ve paralleled cat domestication in some respects, especially when it comes to pest control might suggest that dogs were initially domesticated for this purpose. Some Asian countries have people keeping them around for this possibly ancient practice suggests that this has immense staying power in those places, so much so this would’ve exactly been the case in prehistory if it weren’t for faeces attracting rats (if I remember right).

As cats were a later addition in East Eurasia, so dogs would’ve been the default animal for catching mice and rats with. Cats were first domesticated in both Africa and West Eurasia, so with the latter they appeared in Europe earlier than is previously believed. So using dogs as pest control lasted longer in East Eurasia, perhaps longer than their descendants realised. It makes sense that if cats were a later addition to East Eurasia, then dogs would’ve been the default pest control animals longer there too. So cats were immediately adopted into Europe after the Neolithic revolution there.

Same thing happened in Africa, via Egypt though they were independently domesticated there. I even think, though this depends on the community and country, cats were used as pest control there longer as well. But this is because dogs were a latter addition to the African bestiary, owing more to the arrival to Afro-Asiatic people. If I’m not mistaken, I remember reading somewhere on Google Books that dogs didn’t arrive in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo until the Iron Age.

That Africans never bothered domesticating golden wolves says a lot about dogs being a latter addition, though that’s not to say they never used them for catching mice either (maybe to some extent). But it does say a lot about how cat and dog domestication sometimes parallel each other.

Some insights into various dog cultures

From my experience using search terms in various languages, there is a difference in frequency and the sort of story being reported. So much so they give better insight into their respective cultures, given then degree of what the animal (in this case, a dog) is used for can highlight any differences. There’s actually something like the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map, which scientifically classifies and categorises countries based on their (shared) cultural and social values. The following categories are English-Speaking, Catholic Europe, Orthodox Europe, African, Islamic, South Asia, Latin America, Protestant Europe and Confucian.

It’s likely pet ownership practises fall into any one of these to an extent, especially when depending on the purpose they’re used for. I said before that East Asia played a far bigger role in dog domestication than is given credit for, given bad stereotypes about East Asians being dog eaters even if not all of them are like this. Some of the East Asian countries I mentioned before like Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and China at some point all using dogs for pest control. If World Values Survey ever evaluated dog ownership practises and attitudes, a pattern will emerge.

Not that using dogs to hunt game is entirely unheard of, at some point people would even hunt monitor lizards with dogs here in the Philippines. Likewise there certainly are people who use dogs for pest control in places like Turkey, but they are in the minority and from what I’ve read it’s relatively more common for Filipinos to use dogs to hunt vermin (and sadly endangered species like the cloud rat), while it’s more common for Turks to use dogs to hunt bigger game. But then again Indonesia is Muslim-majority and Indonesians tend to use dogs for pest control.

There has to be something about shared cultural values that influences the way people own and use dogs, after all culture is shaped by historical, geographical, geopolitical and environmental circumstances. If you go to Arabic-language and Turkish language websites, from my experience there doesn’t seem to be any posts about dogs used to hunt rodents in both Turkey and the Arab world. Foreign countries maybe, but not in those two. There has to be something about the cultural values that influences the way they own and use dogs.

It could largely be a matter of legal issues too that affect the way people own and use dogs, I think not too many Filipinos hunt game animals with dogs. Maybe at some point they did, but most of the time all that hunting is largely reserved for hunting rodents. This is also the case in Indonesia and Vietnam, so there’s clearly going to be a pattern of shared values and attitudes to dogs in this case. Since sport hunting isn’t so popular here in the Philippines and possibly other Southeast Asian countries to a likely extent, it could be a matter of legal issues.

But it’s also due to shared cultural values, which gives a new dimension to the way people own and use dogs. Sport hunting is definitely a big thing in the Western world and quite arguably Latin American nations like Mexico for instance. It’s true that subsistence hunting is a thing as well in Latin America, especially among indigenous groups such as the Maya and the Nahuatl. But it’s also true that in parts of Latin America, sport hunting is also a thing there too just as in Anglo America mainly to emulate their European counterparts.

So a pattern will emerge if their attitudes to dogs were evaluated, this could also be applied to any other pet to some extent. But it is worth noting how cultural attitudes to animals affect the way people use them, in Islamic countries according to Muslim law and belief dog ownership is permittable if done within reason (mainly hunting and guarding) but Turkey as well as the Tuaregs and Fulani use dogs for herding while Indonesia uses dogs for pest control the way they do with cats.

So there’s going to be a shared thread between geographical and geopolitical areas, especially when it comes to the way they use dogs there.

The importance of East Asia in dog domestication

I personally feel that East Asia and thus East Asians have played a far bigger role in dog domestication than westerners give credit for, especially if East Asia’s commonly believed to be where dogs were first domesticated. Since not all East Asians eat dogs and not all East Asian dogs roam freely, so there’s clearly many more uses for them. Or at least those that don’t involve eating them at all. I even compared this to civet domestication in the sense that dogs, like civets, were regarded as vermin until it turned out they’re rather useful.

Not only do many East Asian countries keep dogs for guarding, but also for hunting and believe it or not I think this started out with dogs preying on smaller game and pests. Some prehistoric Asians were keen enough to exploit this, extrapolating this to make them hunt bigger game and even today some Asians keep dogs for hunting reptiles and rodents alike. It’s not just the case in the Philippines, but also Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Laos. Most of them are in Southeast/Southern East Asia but it still proves my point about the earliest dogs.

If dogs are like civets in some regards, they too started as vermin stealing hunts from humans only to turn out to be super-useful when it comes to guarding premises and hunting smaller vermin themselves. Not an exact analogy but a good starting point to know where it all started.

Inspiration–How to get away with it

When it comes to the thorny spectre of cultural appropriation, I guess it’s possible to draw inspiration from foreign cultures. But there has to be either a real admiration for or respect for said inspiration, as well as a real open-mindedness to do things the way say the Chinese do when it comes to making hanfu and qipao. I have made mistakes before, I could’ve culturally appropriated back then. Othertimes, I didn’t do things right. But I’ll do better and I’ll try. Another way one can get away with cultural appropriation, if it were possible at all, is to have a certain country’s culture get popularised big time.

Supposing if Chinese culture were to get popularised big time, alongside hanfu (if it also gets popularised), that by then I could now get away with making and selling hanfu for a living. If because there’s now a substantial enough market for it spawned by interest in Chinese historical programmes, that it’s feasible to sell hanfu to these very people. There will be a market for hanfu here in the Philippines should Chinese culture get popularised big time, alongside its Vietnamese and Indonesian counterparts. These are some of the situations where one could get away with selling such a garment now that everybody else are really into those.

Since it’s going to be normal to be into Chinese culture, to the point where there’s going to be a big market for Chinese and Chinese inspired products. Same things can be said of Vietnamese and Indonesian cultures should they become popular here in the Philippines as well. This wouldn’t be any better, but it’s better than taking aspects of a certain culture with neither real interest nor admission of where it came from. Such is the case with Dior, which got lambasted for appropriating hanfu from the Han Chinese. They wore those garments long before Dior got to it, it’s only in the 21st century that these clothes are being made and worn again in the public.

I feel when it comes to seeking inspiration, one must give credit to it to avoid such a scandal. If you’re going to do a mamianqun, make sure you credit it to the Han Chinese as they’re the ones who made such a garment before. If you’re going to do hanfu and sell it online, put it under something separate. It might be doable to put it in something separate from where you sell Filipiniana, but you have to put a disclaimer in your shop stating that you take inspiration from not only the Philippines but also China. You might have to add Vietnam, Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia if you’re going to take inspiration from their countries. Give credit to where it’s due.

Admittedly, my advice isn’t perfect and can still constitute cultural appropriation in some cases. But it’s best to give credit to where it’s due, especially if you take inspiration from another country or culture. Otherwise, it would become akin to stealing a family heirloom because of its significance to certain people.

East meets east

Or my ever-changing fashion sense, I said before somewhere else that my fashion sense has changed over the years. It’s gone from Goth to super girly to something very eastern, as in it’s inspired by various eastern cultures. Starting with the Han Chinese when it comes to hanfu, the original folk clothing prior to Manchu domination during the Qing dynasty. I finally made two semi or partially pleated skirts, if because making them fully pleated made the skirts really short. It’s not outright hanfu, but rather hanyuansu. As in it’s inspired by hanfu, it has hanfu elements in them. Anyways, I paired them with my kimonas and they don’t look too bad together.

Well, making these first skirts is the first step to creating Han clothing. I even have plans of creating things like a bijia (a kind of vest worn by the Han Chinese), hanfu trousers and shorts and dudou (a kind of underwear). Not to mention I have Chinese ancestry on my mother’s side, so I’m kind of reconnecting with that side of my family. If I were to go further with my eastern influences, I would even bother making and wearing something like the Indonesian kebaya and its accompanying camisole (well, what they call a camisole). Even Vietnamese folk clothing, that’s something I have plans of doing as well and I’m really on my way to developing a very eastern fashion sense.

Admittedly, it’s not all the folk costumes of the Far East as it’s just confined to four countries so far but this goes to show you that my fashion sense is increasingly more based on eastern folk costumes. This isn’t the first time I fell in love with eastern folk clothing, this goes to Indian folk clothing but I feel when it comes to saris making something like it takes more yards to make. In this regard, it’s actually more practical to make hanfu especially with less yards or metres of fabric. While this isn’t true for all Han garments, when it comes to hanyuansu that’s doable.

That can be easily done with less fabric, if you know how to make adjustments for it. That’s something that I learnt from making a pleated skirt, so I bothered to learn from my mistake and make the wrap skirts anyways. It’s really not that perfect, but whatever the length I was able to make a skirt like that by lessening the amount of pleats being made. If I can make a Han skirt, I can learn to make a bijia with somewhat less fabric than that. I could even learn to make Han trousers with twice the fabric needed for the skirt, this wouldn’t be easy given my prior attempts at making them before.

But here, I have improved. Maybe not entirely, as there’s some work needing to be done. It’s better than it was before, in fact I might even expand this to doing other kinds of Han and other eastern garments as I said before. I even got into Thai and Laotian folk clothing, though admittedly much of it’s within China’s vicinity but that’s for a good start.