France has fraught historical relationships with Asian countries and cultures, and by fraught I also, of course, mean colonial. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other parts of Asia are former French colonies; in my own experiences of Paris, I’d witnessed very little celebration of anything Asian, the sole exception being a longstanding respect for and obsession with Japan’s cultural products—an obsession that, to my eye and to not a few Asian friends’ eyes, can also include notes of appropriation, typecasting, and fetishization.
But this new prominence sounded, perhaps, different. In conversation, Parisians had suggested that this change was a reflection of the times: The more global awareness of millennials and Gen Z’ers, as well as the exposure to other cultures and cuisines on social media, has softened the Parisian stubbornness to keep white France the focus. The change seemed considerable.