The "Curators": Ainu, Sherman Alexi

"Fairs" and "museums" are interesting because they are meant to be educational. Yet, it is important to contextualize these and remember who is educating who. The curators of such exhibits are usually in privileged positions of power with ownership over the items being displayed.

This summer, I visited an Ainu Museum in the northern most island of Japan. The Ainu are what the Native Americans are to the US; indigenous peoples, stripped of land and still largely ignored in the nation's conscious.

Interestingly, this museum is run by Ainu descendants. I arrived in time for a recreation of Ainu musical performance, and the audience that day was comprised of a Chinese American, Chinese, and Japanese tour group. The lively MC was dressed in traditional garb, and made a revealing statement at the end of the show: "This is our traditional dress; but I don't wear it aftern 5pm, unless I'm working overtime."

This sarcastic comment took my friend aback, exclaiming, "he ruined the moment!"

Yet the MC's self-reflection placed himself outside the exhibit, looking in at himself and his friends dancing on stage. While he wants to share his culture, his primarily focus is employment. His point being: our traditional culture needs preservation, but so do I, as a contemporary individual, NOW.

Hearing Sherman Alexi talk at my high school was similar to this scenario. It was a commentary on his current experience as a person with Native American roots, helping bring a culture that is often framed in the past, into the present.

Whenever you want to learn about a culture, it is good to have an inside source. Yet as the Ainu MC noted, realize the context of the presentation: its educational and entertainment values as well as who presents it (an individual speaking on unique experiences, or must he/she generalize them so that the audience can understand), and for what reasons (is it non-profit or profit?) These lead to a more critical eye when attending any "fair" or "exhibit." But whether you want this mentality depends on whether you attend an event to revel in the marvels and the "experience," or in order to seek out things that slipped through or were omitted by curatorial discrimination (i.e. truths that are lost or in storage, not "intriguing enough" for the audience's money).