When Western postmodern theory was promoted as a post-colonial discourse in the 1970s, it was widely discussed and reviewed in different perspectives around the world. Edward W. Said and his orientalism had become an important link that cannot be overlooked in studying Asian American culture. In Orientalism, Said pointed out that the many meanings of orientalism are linked together, and the most easily accepted understanding is the meaning of a discipline in academic research (Said 2). In this essay, the theoretical framework of orientalism will be discussed as a power system and an ideological system, combined with two articles that shows the existence and influence of orientalism in popular US culture.

When functioning as a political power system, orientalism is a knowledge system, a set of institutions and systems. The East becomes an intrinsic part of the western material civilization and culture. Orientalism as a form of discourse in culture, which has a profound foundation in academic mechanisms, vocabulary, imagery, orthodox beliefs, and even colonial styles (Said 3). This discourse system is a global network organization that combines the functions of political, economic, and cultural oppression. In fact, as the orientalism of power, it is also a kind of Western-style behavior that dominates, changes and rules the East.

Any history is, in a sense, a history of cultural evolution. The world history after the 14th century is the process of Western cultural history that has been trying to manipulate the history of Eastern culture. Over the centuries, Europe has transformed non-Western societies into “non-historical” nations. through orientalism. Through Orientalism, Said believes that Western knowledge about the East is a product and reflection of the West’s attempt to conquer the East. It adapts to and supports the needs of western colonial expansion in the form of knowledge, and creates a myth that the West is superior to the East in general. It provides a theoretical basis for Western insults, infringements, and conquests of the East. This power system is extended in America, as the early European settlers and their descendants treat people with different ethnicity not as “the self,” but as “the other.”

In “Apu’s Brown Voice”, the author talks about the cultural identity of South Asian Americans and their struggles to find recognition from the mainstream society. The long-established orientalism beliefs have made the visual and audio characteristics the basis in determining what is foreignness and familiarity (Davé 41). Instead of addressing difference from the humanism approach, orientalism emphasizes on the differences in appearance and accent between different races. Despite all the similarities that different ethnicities share, people from South Asian cultures are still alienated. Orientalism in popular culture has even lost its pursuit for accuracy in the academic domain, as oriental culture is objectified as extremely simplified imageries and stereotypes. The voice of the South Asian character Apu is actually dubbed by a white actor, Hank Azaria (Davé 55), with the least amount of knowledge about the real Indian culture, and cannot even distinguish India from Pakistan.

Similarly, Americans with East and Southeast Asian cultural roots are also finding it difficult to emerge in the music industry. In the later 1960s, there emerged extraordinary rock bands whose members were females with Asian backgrounds. Despite the inspirational music they made, they got neglected by the mainstream musicians and critics (Euse). While Yoko Ono is best known for her relationship with John Lennon, her experimental album hardly made any lasting impression in the masses. Despite the fact that Ono’s album inspired dozens of female rock singers in the later decades, she is still best known as the lover of John Lennon. This resembles the power relationship between the east and the west shaped by orientalism: the west is always in the dominant, masculine position, while the orient cultures struggle in the subordinate, feminine position, despite their richness.

Based on this unequal power relationship and long-held biases, the description of the East in the West, both in academic works and in literary and artistic works, has seriously distorted the reality. The Eastern world is often vilified, weakened, wild, and feminized. On the one hand, the ethnic groups that is other than the self in the eyes of Europeans and Americans are all lacking in rationality, morality, and full of naivety, absurdity, laziness and ignorance. On the other hand, the orient is granted a mysterious and desirable image. This contradicting image of the East was created by the West itself. This is why Asian culture tends to be treated with little seriousness in America. In order to succeed in something, such as music, an Asian band must work ten times as hard (Euse). They also face the difficulty of being labelled as “Asian” and “exotic,” which diverts people’s attention from their music.

The Orient that Said discussed is not only the East in practical geographical terms. It has deeper political and cultural connotations. As he pointed out in his introduction: Oriental is almost an invention of Europeans. It has been a romantic legend and exotic since ancient times, haunting human memory and vision. The place where the peculiar experience is created (Said 1). The East is not a natural existence. It does not only exist in nature. The East of Orientalism is not the real East. It is a series of practices and cognitions that have developed with the rise of capitalism and global expansion: with the contributions from western diplomats, soldiers, scientists, journalists, tourists, expeditions, and adventurers…. The personal experiences of various people, their understanding, feelings, thinking, speaking and writing, constitute the Eastern discourse in Western culture. Coupled with the logical thinking and theoretical construction of politicians, scholars, and thinkers, an eastern part of Western culture is formed.

Since the Europeans created its first colony on the Asian continent, the Western world has used its powerful and irrefutable power to make the orient a sub-category under their definition of culture. Helping backward countries achieve modernization and realizing universal unity of world culture seem to be just goals behind this. The Eastern traditional culture, which has been self-sufficient and has been running for thousands of years according to its own laws and characteristics, has forever been thrown into the “worldly” and “unity” floods, losing its originality and authenticity. It is often required for Americans from Asian cultures to put in extra efforts to Americanize themselves, such as the attempts of Apu to reduce his “Indianness” and become a “model minority” (Davé 53). Behind his funny imitation of the “authentic” style, it has shown that the influence of orientalism is so profound, that Asian Americans, especially second and later generations of immigrants, choose to abandon their cultural roots just to blend in.

Eastern traditional culture and Western culture are two completely different systems, whether there are obvious differences in their sources or characteristics. For example, Russell divided the entire world philosophy into Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy and Indian philosophy. There are also a wide variety of cultures beyond the centralized western culture, which should be important and valuable parts of cultural identity for ethnic groups. Different cultures should be parallel with each other, with no superiority. If the Eastern culture is to be solved and reinterpreted with Western traditional concepts and systems, reading and examining Oriental traditions with the eyes of “modernity”, inaccuracies are inevitable. Under the value dimension and standards of the West, the realities of Eastern culture are unavoidably masked and distorted.

Behind the political principles of Western centralism is the sense of identity plays a key role. In the Western world’s various descriptions about the East, it is always centered on one’s own nation, which excludes non-ethnic groups and vilifies them. The distinction between the self and the aliens not only enabled the Westerners to establish their own identity, but also formed a sense of pride and superiority in the self-ethnic group over other peoples. Therefore, Western centrism is an identity politics. According to Said, the big problem lies in the issue of national identity, or identity politics (Said 23). National identity is completely fiction in most cases. In the case of the Arabs, this recognition says that all Arabs are homogenous (Said 10). This national identity was formed at the beginning of the national consciousness awakening. The Western concept mainly comes from fighting Islam and the Arab world, without a deeper look into the depth and richness of the Arab cultures. This confrontation is then deepened by political, military, and economic confrontations.

In conclusion, orientalism is a form of power discourse, which is formed through the exchange of powers with politics, culture, morality, and knowledge. In “Orientalism”, Said devotedly and systematically examined the connection between theory and politics, literature and culture. The book highlights the historical performance of language and explains how language can exert its political power through the production of social institutions and knowledge. If we do not study the influence of ideas, culture, and history, and more correctly study the allocation of power, we cannot seriously study ideas, culture, and history itself. From the examples of Asian female rock bands and the image of Apu, the profound influences of orientalism on US pop culture is revealed. Essentially, Orientalism is Western discourse about the East. It is a way for the Western power that is in a strong position to dominate for a long time, to reconstruct and repress the disadvantaged Eastern voice.