I have to say, I really like what’s happening here. The leather jacket, the jeans, the kung-fu shoes. I used to run around in those shoes when I was a kid, only back then it didn’t seem so sexy on the lady from the chicken market scrubbing her knife, and certainly not as sexy as a glass slipper with a heel...
Which I guess is a long-winded way of admitting my shame for seeing the cool in this shoe style through a Western wearer. That’s the side of the minority experience that people don’t want to hear – when gratitude for the opportunity must be demonstrated through assimilation, and as such, almost needing permission to see the wonders of the home culture by validation from the new one.