I see a lot of people responding with “you don’t have to be Japanese to cook Japanese food”. I think this comic raises another interesting point (whether it’s the intention of the author or not).
The analysis would be valid if it was a random set of nationalities: Asian, European, African, etc. But in the comic, all of the employees are Asian. I think there’s a criticism that the restaurant owner is racially biased and only hires Asian staff. Why? I don’t see another explanation that the staff must “pass” for Japanese, which would be problematic of the owner.
I think the idea is that customers expect Asian looking people at a Japanese or Chinese restaurant, not that the owner is racist. Of course said customers can’t actually tell the difference between different Asian ethnicities usually.
The ultimate decision comes to the owner, though. Should he bend to the customer’s expectations? Or is it only his idea of the customer’s expectations; because at least on Lemmy it looks like people don’t care about the look of the staff. Probably not a representative sample, though.
I see a lot of people responding with “you don’t have to be Japanese to cook Japanese food”. I think this comic raises another interesting point (whether it’s the intention of the author or not).
The analysis would be valid if it was a random set of nationalities: Asian, European, African, etc. But in the comic, all of the employees are Asian. I think there’s a criticism that the restaurant owner is racially biased and only hires Asian staff. Why? I don’t see another explanation that the staff must “pass” for Japanese, which would be problematic of the owner.
I think the idea is that customers expect Asian looking people at a Japanese or Chinese restaurant, not that the owner is racist. Of course said customers can’t actually tell the difference between different Asian ethnicities usually.
The ultimate decision comes to the owner, though. Should he bend to the customer’s expectations? Or is it only his idea of the customer’s expectations; because at least on Lemmy it looks like people don’t care about the look of the staff. Probably not a representative sample, though.
The owner wants his business to make money. If hiring white or black people means earning less money why would he do that?