Week 2 - Ao Dai Revival

Week 2
Jinia Lee
ASA141

In Professor Valverde's "Ao Dai Revival," she quoted the designer, Le Si Hoang, "Vietnamese culture borrows from other cultures to make our own." As someone that identifies as Mien, I can see how we also do the same by fusing different influences from China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. in our language, food, and fashion. While growing up, I learned how important embroidery and traditional clothing is to a lot of Mien folks because it represents who they are and allows diasporas to have that piece of "home." Because Mien is a minority ethnic group, it was interesting to see similar ethnic textiles that were used to make ao dais by Minh Hanh.

However, I have mixed feelings about these fusions of cultures because it makes me question what exactly is "culture?" I understand that culture is not fixed and is always changing throughout time, but how do we define what is Mien or what is Vietnamese without essentializing an ethnic group? In addition, I think that there is an imbalance of power relations when it comes to borrowing cultures to revive national dresses because minority ethnic groups get some type of representation, but it is minimal since it is being represented as part of a well-known ethnic group.