Annalee Newitz writes that we need to fight back against the threat from sexy Asian lady robots. The threat is not literal, though it is certainly present: the slow-burning but now resurgent thread of orientalism in science fiction.
You may not know the term, but if you have watched the 1982 movie Blade Runner or the 2002 TV series Firefly, you have seen it in action. As critic Kelly Kanayama put it, techno-Orientalism is a collection of tropes that describe a "bad, Asian-influenced future with no Asians in it". In Blade Runner, an apocalyptically polluted Los Angeles is full of signs in Japanese, but features virtually no Japanese characters. In the dark future of the space opera Firefly, characters curse in Mandarin, but we never meet a Chinese person. These are just two of many sci-fi stories that exhibit techno-Orientalism, which condemns and erases Asian cultural power at the same time.
Countering lazy ethnic tropes and appropriations isn't accomplished in the arts alone. It flows downhill from politics.
We need the US and China to renew their decades-long Science and Technology Agreement, which fosters collaboration between them on scientific endeavours. As of me writing this, the agreement has lapsed, though Nature reports that the two nations are still in talks. The European Commission needs to invite more Asian partners into the Horizon grant programme, a €53.5 billion fund for research into climate, health and more. And we need to see Western governments creating a safer environment for Asian immigrant workers and students
The Glasgow Worldcon panel that led to Newitz' piece doesn't seem to be online, but I learned about Eliza Chan's novel Fathomfolk from discussion of it.
Welcome to Tiankawi – shining pearl of human civilization and a safe haven for those fleeing civil unrest. Or at least, that's how it first appears. But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on top: peering down from shining towers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk – sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas – who live in the polluted waters below.
