It seems like we always have to return to cultural appropriation 101 when these subjects come up. Why would Asian-Americans care about this sorta thing when Asians in Asia do not? Cultural appropriation is not just using something of another culture, it's the act of doing so in the context of existing power relationships (and I don't have to tell you all that Chinese people in China are not oppressed by whites). As long as a white girl can earn praise for wearing a qipao to prom while an Asian girl would encounter racism/derision/etc. for doing the same, something ain't right.

But this is not a really great example given the qipao's actual history... and as near as I can tell what' we're looking at here is a reactionary framing of the entire idea of cultural appropriation as hysterical leftist overreach, a narrative popular with alt-right and status quo warrior types alike. It's certainly true that in America students are sometimes a little too aggressive in calling out stuff that isn't really that problematic (e.g. the famous kimono ordeal)... but rather than recognizing these episodes as a natural consequence of confronting a long history of racism in America (what, did you expect activists, often students, to get it perfectly right every time?) these things are blown way out of proportion, often by people with a vested interest in doing so (e.g. all the for-profit grievance-mongers signal boosting this junk). But the underlying idea of cultural appropriation is sound: if white people in a white-dominated society can adopt other people's fashion or hairstyles while those people continue to encounter discrimination for doing the same then something is wrong with that society. And really, nobody should be surprised that Asian-Americans would be angry about something that "actual Chinese" don't care about.