Whitewashed kimchi and cultural appropriation
How they fixed our gross food and made it trendy
Cabbage kimchi, or 배추김치 (baechu kimchi)
I was walking out of an Australian health food store here in Singapore when I noticed jars of kimchi in an open display fridge.
I know kimchi. I’m Korean and my mom has been making it at home all my life.
Koreans have been eating kimchi for thousands of years. The process of making kimchi is passed women from generation to generation, usually through women.
There are many different kinds, but it’s generally spicy and made by fermenting salted vegetables, like cabbage and radish.
Clockwise from top left: kimchi made with cabbage, mustard greens, radish, and leek
When I was little, it was on the table at every meal (yes, breakfast included). When we moved from South Korea to Sri Lanka, my mom went to great lengths to find the ingredients she needed to make kimchi.
My sister and I loved eating it with plain white rice, and we thought it was also amazing with Kraft Mac and Cheese.
The stuff in these jars? It looked nothing like kimchi.
It was the epitome of cultural appropriation.
What is cultural appropriation?
Cultural appropriation is a practice where someone from a culture with more power takes an element of someone else’s culture for their own benefit.
In the process, they turn this cultural element into a commodity, whose sole purpose is to be sold for money.
They also reinforce the unfair power dynamics between their culture and the culture that they’re taking from.
What makes this an example of cultural appropriation?
This “kimchi” is sold by an Australian company founded by two white people who are misrepresenting a core element of Korean culture to make money, while doing nothing to uplift the Korean community.
In this post, I’ll break down 4 specific behaviors that I find problematic.
Keep in mind that I am one of over 80 million people in the world who identify as Korean. Each of us a full, multi-layered human being and we often hold different opinions.
1. Exploiting the power difference
They are using their white privilege to profit from the culture of a marginalized group.
The global food industry, like virtually all other industries, is dominated by white people — specifically, white cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied men. To confirm this for yourself, just look at who is behind the biggest restaurant groups and food producers, and who gets the most coverage in food media.
Koreans are a marginalized group in many contexts outside Korea, meaning that they have less economic, political, and social power. Those contexts include countries where white people are the dominant group and hold the most power, including Australia.
At the risk of being repetitive: here, we have business owners with white privilege, taking food (a sacred element of culture) from a marginalized group.
In an ideal world, this unfair power dynamic wouldn’t exist, everyone would have equitable access to funding and support and media coverage, and everyone could do whatever they wanted to do — including commercializing other people’s food.
But in our world with unfair power differences, it is unethical for people who have the most power to profit by taking from other cultures, while people in that community struggle to be recognized.
2. Centering the dominant culture
They are creating an image of a “strange and foreign” food to position themselves as enlightened experts (this is exoticism) while erasing the food’s cultural roots.
They saw something, took it without learning about it, and “improved” it. Not by coincidence, this also describes colonialism.
There’s no mention, on the jar or the website, of where kimchi’s cultural origins.
On their website (which is no longer available) the company only said about their “Kim-Chi Superkraut”:
Always one to get creative, we’ve taken an untraditional approach to this feisty Kimchi!
Translation: Their “creativity” and judgment of what makes food valuable and healthy and “super” is more important than properly representing the food in a way that’s respectful to the culture that they’re taking from.
They’re reinforcing the idea that food that’s considered weird and unpleasant when made and eaten by Koreans becomes reimagined and trendy in the hands of white people.
This is white supremacist ideology: white people are better and they make everything better.
3. Taking all the money
They’re reaping the benefits without giving back to the community they’re taking from.
Food is a sacred part of any culture. It’s how we nourish ourselves and connect with our communities and our environment.
Kimchi specifically is considered as central to the Korean identity as is our language.
Making kimchi is traditionally a communal event where the ingredients, the labor, and the kimchi are all shared, to ensure that everyone has enough.
For thousands of years, kimchi has connected Koreans to nature (which provides the seasonal ingredients) and to each other.
Making kimchi takes a lot of physical work and is usually done with friends, neighbors, and family
For someone with no connection to our culture to take this and turn it into a whitewashed commodity so that they can get rich is insulting and deeply disrespectful.
The only way that it might be okay is if they gave a huge chunk of their earnings to the Korean community. No version of this is happening.
This is especially important when you consider the fact that all around the world, Koreans sell their kimchi at a fraction of the price that white-owned brands charge.
4. Dismissing the impact
They’re choosing to deny and deflect when confronted with the immense harm they’re doing.
When I posted an Instagram story saying:
What made them want to take someone else’s traditional food (the same food that was called disgusting and smelly and gross until it was whitewashed) and “take an untraditional approach with it?
I mean, I know the answer is money, but 🤦🏻♀️
Here’s what followed:
Them: Hey, sorry you feel so strongly against our untraditional approach to Kimchi, but I assure you it isn’t money that drives us to create these products. If you check out the ingredients on the back you’ll find that we put a lot of love into these jars! All the best 💕
Me: Can you share what it is that does drive you to create these products? And more importantly, what steps are you taking to uplift and support the Korean community? We’re looking for more responsibility than “a lot of love”.
Them: I can pass your message on to the boss/owners if you like and they can elaborate, but from my conversations with them they wanted to make preserves and fermented products with added benefits, probiotics, wholesome food and love.
Me: I’m not simply looking for a more detailed answer. I want the company to acknowledge that what they’re doing is cultural appropriation, apologize, and take responsibility.
At the time of writing, it’s been a month since I sent that last message and I have not heard back from them.
They aren’t just dismissing my statement that what they’re doing is harmful.
They’re also actively telling me that I am wrong. Wrong for feeling the way I feel, and wrong for saying they’re driven by money.
Instead of pointing out the impact of their actions, they would rather I focused on their purported intention to spread peace and love.
As my friend Esther Loke (@estherloke.co) pointed out:
Argh. They keep mentioning love like it will wash away everything wrong with what they are doing. It’s like we do it with love, so it can’t be wrong.
Another common version of this that Esther pointed out and that I have also often heard, “Our intention was to share your lovely culture,” adds yet another layer of harm.
This is white saviorism. It says, “We’re helping you, we’re saving your culture,” and centers white saviors while further marginalizing people of that culture.
How to identify cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation happens all the time in online business, as well.
To figure out whether someone is practicing cultural appropriation, ask these questions:
Does what they’re promoting involve an element from someone else’s culture?
If they are taking from someone else’s culture, does the business owner have more power or less power than the people of that culture?
Who is being centered? Who benefits the most?
What is the impact experienced by the people who own the culture?
Global Inclusion Basics
If you’d like to learn more about cultural appropriation, consider signing up for Global Inclusion Basics.
It’s an on-demand workshop that I put together to help you build a business that feels welcoming and supportive for people from all around the world.
PS. If you’re curious about how traditional kimchi is made, check out this video by Maangchi, a US-based South Korean food YouTuber.
PPS. Watch my boyfriend learn to make kimchi from my mom in this Instagram reel:
