ABSTRACT
We all want to be chic, not shit. But what if the millennial chic over China or the Orient promoted by the dozen or so major US publishing houses turns out to be nothing but Chink chic or shitnoiserie! Like the handful of New York and Paris fashion designers who read the public mind and forecast the “feng” or wind for next season, these publishers tailor-make the Emperor’s New Clothes, which bares old racial stereotypes exemplified by the gamut of associations of “Chink.” “Shitnoiserie,” on the other hand, is a deliberate malapropism of the French term “chinoiserie,” the quasi-Chinese decorative style in vogue since the seventeenth century, and the American slang “shit.” I mangle this Western word to register the genealogy of the stereotype from Europe to America, the duality of this endearing and repulsive stereotype, and the outrage over the discursive violence in the name of global, multicultural representation. Practically a booming industry, Chink chic arises as a wish-fulfillment for the United States to vent anxiety over the rise of China the evil dragon and to tame and possess that alien creature like a China doll. Such troping of the Chinese Other is further legitimized by the claim of
authentic, insider self-representation from writers of Chinese and Asian descent, or those alleging close ethnic affiliation by virtue of remote ancestry, marriage, research, and life experience. The circle of self-representation comprises honorary Chinese, Chinese American, and Chinese diasporic writers. American dream-weavers hail from not only mainstream whites but also native-born and naturalized Chinese Americans. While regrettable yet hardly surprising that whites would continue the long Orientalist tradition founded by nineteenth-century writers, missionaries, and the like, it is disconcerting that Chinese Americans would join the chorus, proof that the melting pot or salad bowl has made Americans out of Chinese descendants. This is to be expected, even celebrated, especially with respect to those Chinese Americans who are American by birth, if only consumers of Chink chic can keep in mind that the products in their hands are not “Made in China,” but “Made in the USA” by Americans. In view of the pervasiveness of Chink chic across the American landscape like urban litter, it would be foolhardy to try to be exhaustive. Instead, I analyze the shared thematics of a small number of representative writers.
