#but yea chinese media's popularity overseas has been. nice for me personally

[misnomera]

I think it unfair to open a can of worms through an anonymous ask(if I do it’ll be in my own acc) so I’ve put the slash between names but am I the only Chinese person really frustrated with the popularity of T/GCF bc of all the whitewashing that takes place in so many fandoms for East Asian media? They say if a fandom gets too uncomfortable to leave but I honestly find it unfair that I feel like I’m always the one that has to leave. Or is there something wrong with me?

yo anon i’m just vibing here on tumblr dot com and like you already said this ask is pretty unfair. pls dont do this on anon? but hey I do actually have some thoughts on this, so what the fuck, i’ll entertain it. If anyone clowns on this ask I will block <3

As chinese diaspora I think it’s great that tgcf is getting attention overseas! not to invalidate your frustrations or anything because i think your worry is justified, especially since the world of tgcf is so entrenched in taoist cultural traditions and beliefs, which a lot of foreigners might not have a good understanding of (though i wouldn’t call that whitewashing? just cultural ignorance). people are gonna misinterpret parts of the story esp because its hard for translations to convey the right tone sometimes. people are gonna mispronounce or misspell characters’ names and you’ll cringe a little about it. that’s inevitable. the burden often ends up falling upon chinese fans to correct misconceptions too, which can be frustrating, but from what i’ve seen so far on tumblr and twitter and the like it’s been relatively okay and pretty respectful, and people are genuinely interested in learning more about the cultural context to the stories? And having thoughtful conversations about said representations of culture? I’ve also seen lots of people on social media who are like, actually seriously learning chinese now as well because they want to consume more chinese media. i think that’s great! i welcome that, also validates the hell outta my cultural identity so its like, hell yeah, y’know? And ultimately, chinese or not, these people love the story of tgcf, so i don’t see the harm in it. 

There will always be people who write stupid internet takes and yeah with the donghua getting a bigger western audience from airing on youtube and funimation and whatnot those instances will probably increase. Again, inevitable, thats just the state of social media today. but my experience of the english-speaking side of the fandom has been pretty alright so far (keep in mind im still very new to tgcf, i started reading the book on november 1st). And y’know, you can always ~curate your social media experience~ to avoid seeing annoying shit. unfollow ppl who like to get involved in fandom drama! remain blissfully unaware! dont go actively looking for posts written by haters! get your own lil fandom corner with some mutuals and just vibe! and if you really, really don’t like that non-chinese speakers are getting into tgcf, then, idk, go on weibo and lofter or smth, the fanbase is certainly much bigger there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯