The Chinese Takeout Emoji Is Getting Flak For Cultural Appropriation

The iOS 11.1 update brought about some pretty cool emoji’s such as a mermaid, and gender-neutral people. However, they also received a bit of flak for the new Chinese takeout emoji, here’s why: the Chinese takeout box emoji features a traditional white and red accented takeout box with chopsticks sticking upright from an unseen pile of food.

According to Ming-Cheau Lin, a writer and recipe developer born in Taiwan, this is a symbol of disrespect.

The chopsticks stuck in Chinese takeout symbolises death. Appropriated much? #culturalappropriation @Apple @ResonateVoices @raceandfood https://t.co/jBRsDbwHTp

— Ming-Cheau Lin (@mingcheau) 8 October 2017

The chopsticks appear to mimic the way Chinese people culturally honor the dead by leaving a burning stick of incense upright in a bowl of rice. “Taiwanese culture forms part of Chinese culture,” Lin explained. “I was raised [to consider this bad etiquette], and from my understanding, the same applies in China and Japan.”

However, one of the design creators, Jennifer 8 Lee, countered her argument on Twitter but changed the design to uncrossed chopsticks.

I think given that takeout box is more American than Chinese, there is some wiggle room. We uncrossed chopsticks bc of complaints tho.

— Jennifer 8. Lee (@jenny8lee) 8 October 2017

Yiying Lu, reiterated that the chopsticks would remain uncrossed and spoke about how, when faced with a critique, it’s important to have a dialogue about it.

The chopsticks has been uncrossed after @bobtung's suggestion in realtime when we present the artworks at @Unicode https://t.co/3sNYWTvvat

— Yiying Lu (@YiyingLu) 8 October 2017

Ladies, we agree!