I’ve been doing a bit of pondering lately; yes, it’s going to be one of those posts.

In truth, this isn’t that out of character. My days are filled with pondering, puzzling and general cerebral cud-chewing; it’s a by-product of my homesteading life. Gardening, home-and-hearth tending, crisis averting, and way too much of what is grandly labelled blue sky thinking but is in actual fact day dreaming, all in the company of a menagerie who are always up for hearing my latest pontification as long as it’s accompanied by the food bucket, does allow your thoughts to wander a little.

The concept that’s been exercising my synapses of late is that of cultural appropriation.

As regular visitors to this missive (bless you all) will remember, we recently celebrated Lunar New Year and all very much enjoyed the whole family-round-the-table, enjoying something different, learning something new deal. Such was our level of enjoyment that a years worth of such celebrations was plotted out complete with synchronized calendars and divvying up of host duties.

The second one was held on Friday, it being the only day we were all free, in honour of St Patrick’s Day.

We dressed in green, got a bit creative with the table setting (a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow and shamrock drink coasters), and put together a menu with a nod to the Emerald Isle. What you see here is us about to tuck into our entree: potato salad in a wine glass (a’la 1970’s antipodean dinner party shrimp cocktail – fancy!) with green beverages. This was followed by Irish Stew and potato bread with a dessert of Millionaire’s Shortbread (which Farm Girl believed to be of Irish invent but, in fact, looks to be Scottish – she did decorate it with a lurid green chocolate shamrock, though).

And that’s what led me to the aforementioned pondering. Is it wrong for us to create a Bit of a Do around the culture of a country from which none of us hale? Is it disrepectful? Downright rude? Is it *gulp* cultural appropriation?

As a group, we’ve always been of the belief that, at the end of the day, as Earth inhabitants, we’re all just human. Our bodies are the same basic design with the same systems and functions; we need the same stuff to survive, we’re all moving through our lives in pretty much the same way. We just have slightly different ways of doing stuff, kind of like when we saw the whole Rock the Boat at the wedding thing on Derry Girls. It’s those things that we do – but with a twist – that are just so awesome! None of them are wrong or bad or stupid…they’re just different. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we all just…

hang on a minute, am I just trying to make myself feel better about this?

Such was my concern that I consulted the very best, Oxford Languages, to shed some light. It tells me cultural appropriation is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society. Well, our evening was certainly not an unacknowledged celebration and I don’t think we were intentionally inappropriate (although the whole Millionaire’s Shortbread thing was a bit of a whoops) and as for being the more dominant… in which way? Also, you could argue, Your Honour, that each of us revelers need only clamber back four or so branches on the family tree to find a very definite, direct link to the very culture we were temporarily appropriating. Does that then make it also our culture? I mean, what is culture when all is done and dusted.

Oh, that’s one massive can of worms right there! One that needs a lot more pondering and puzzling over before this New Zealander of primarily Dutch, German, Scottish, English, Irish, Welsh and-so-much-more descent shares any further proclamations.

Guess I’d better get back to firewood stacking then.

Any helpers?

I’m taking that as a no.