Call Me Crazy But - Tumblr Posts

Or you could just admit most of the extra costumes are very loosely inspired by real world cultural garb and yeah- a ton are extremely orientalist, no surprise there if you know anything about Japan and how they (and others) misrepresent other cultures.

If you're not Vietnamese and are going to complain that "you can't wear a vaguely ao dai style dress w/o pants", then you're going to have to recognize that what you're looking at is a already Westernized and modified version of ao tu than, it literally was made to be tighter and hug the body with puffy sleeves, ribbons, and a bunch of other accessories that were popular in Parisian fashion. The addition of pants isn't even truly 'traditional' since the Chinese forced women to adopt wearing pants under their own common garb during the occupation of Đại Việt, along with adhering to their Neo-Confucian clothing norms.

I can't speak over Vietnamese players & fans since I am Korean, but this really feels like splitting hairs. Either we commit to speaking out against perpetuating (even inadvertently so) orientalism, or you have to learn where and when to choose your battles.

What I mean by that is that fantasy as a genre will often make their in-universe cultures, societal themes, and clothing by referencing those that are found in real life. This has been a thing since time in memoriam. I think that some form of this will always be inescapable, but we do have the ability to call out when people who don't belong to our cultures take a misstep and make things overtly dehumanizing. That being said, it strikes me as incredibly bizarre that you came away from seeing a shlocky bunch of pan-Asian costumes and thought "oh, this is not being worn correctly the way it should be in real life and that is what makes certain people racist and conflate Asian cultures as a monolith for not doing so".

Are these costumes being advertised as 'traditional' or 'accurate' in any way, shape, or form? I am going to say 'no'. That doesn't mean the costumes themselves aren't problematic in that they continue to fetishize other cultures and make traditional clothing very appealing to others in an 'exotic' lense, but I fail to see how not 'wearing the already altered/fetish fap-costume version of an article of clothing like you're really supposed to' is at all the main issue at hand.

i realize a lot of people in the xiv community might not know this, but the ao dai is not a qipao. it's a bit insensitive to wear the ao dai without pants (like, as in, at least jeans or leggings) b/c

1) we must be respectful/not conflate different ethnic styled clothes with one another, as it perpetuates orientalist ideas and attitudes, and

2) vietnamese players will see you and probably ask themselves where your pants are (confirmed from a close friend of mine who was tirelessly harassed on the first day the ao dai was released for validation to wear the ao dai out of cultural context)

if you're looking for chinese style clothes in xiv, such as qipao, you'll want to look at the "far eastern garb for women/men" or the "far eastern socialite's attire", for examples. if you're looking for japanese style or korean style clothes, they're available, too.

the thing is, mixing and matching east asian wardrobes contributes to this orientalist image of the far east. scholar edward said talks a lot about this in his 1978 book "orientalism", where it is summed up as:

"the exaggeration of difference, the presumption of Western superiority, and the application of clichéd analytical models for perceiving the 'Oriental world'".

there are lots of high fantasy tropes that feed into racist stereotypes and caricatures. just because ffxiv comes from the far east doesn't make it immune to perpetuating certain ideas or images uncritically - but that is an entirely separate discussion, if equally important.

to avoid creating characters and stories that feed into the negativity in this world, research and specificity are your friends. this doesn't limit one's creativity, but rather humanizes your characters and the world we live in.

ultimately, it's your adventure and your choice. whether you take the lore literally or as a suggestion is up to you. either way, i wish you well on your journeys throughout the radiant world of etheirys.