neo-colonial guilt, south asian languages and tote bags

Today I have a question, or some thoughts. I was at this restaurant in Colombo last week - the Gallery Cafe, which is a relatively posh place that a lot of expats go, as well as wealthy Sri Lankans (more on the absurdities and complications of expat scenes later). Anyway, this restaurant has a little gift shop, with some nice things (I'm already thinking of Christmas presents, since I'll have to ship them home early). Some things at this shop were a number of things decorated with the Sinhala alphabet. There are mugs, plates, canvas bags, and pillow covers.

The thing is, I like them. I want a mug, and I think some of the other things would make nice gifts. I also own a souvenir from India with Hindi script on it - a canvas bag I think? There are a lot more of this type of thing in India with Hindi; this was the first time I had seen anything with Sinhala.

So here's the question: Is the selling of this type of thing orientalist? If so, how much? Are there situations in which it is or isn't?

Now, I, on a gut level, do think that this kind of thing has a close relationship to a long history of exotification of the Other (speaking specifically of South Asia), carried out by European colonists, missionaries, and now still through global capitalist and cultural forces. I think that to Americans, at least, South Asian languages look really "exotic." Now, its understandable that people think that these languages look very different - they do. I feel that way about languages like Japanese and Thai, languages with which I have absolutely no familiarity. I can't read them, and the symbols don't look similar to anything that I recognize as carrying meaning. This makes it difficult to distinguish between different letters or symbols. However, there is a difference between unrecognizable symbols and symbols that become - I don't know - fetishized? exoticized? Made to seem visually appealing such that people will purchase it as a decorative item. That people like me want to buy it. Commodification plays a big role in the problematic nature of this, I think.

So is this over-thinking? Is this my neo-colonial guilt (copius, for sure) exerting itself and keeping me from buying a mug? (Actually, to be honest, I'm just waiting for my next month's stipend to buy the mug. Til then, its tea in glasses).

Now, I speak (and read and write) both Hindi and Sinhala. This is why I was really excited by the mug. I think Sinhala is a really cool looking language (Becky and I decided it's the cutest of all the South Asian languages - how's that for patronizing?), and, I'll be honest, its cool to be able to read another script. And therefore its cool to have that script on things. Sometimes I think that this makes it different for me to drink tea out of this mug than it would be for me to give this mug as a gift to someone in the states who doesn't speak or read Sinhala. Or even more so, those other tourists/expats, ones who don't read Sinhala and just think it looks cute. Not me though. I'm different. I read it and think it looks cute.

So there's definitely some rationalization happening here. However, I do feel strongly about proper ways to live in places, and I have put in a fair amount of effort to attempt to learn the languages of the places that I have lived. Now, my Hindi and my Sinhala (especially my Sinhala) are not very good, but the time and effort that I have spent learning them was mostly from a political comitment to not just be another American in South Asia who only speaks English. I've done that in other places, and in other places in South Asia, and I don't like it.

The other question here, I think, is about the intrinsic nature of the object versus its use. What if a Sinhala-speaking Sri Lankan person buys this mug? What if a Sinhala-speaking foreigner? A non-Sinhala speaker? What happens when it travels to somewhere like the US, where the symbols most likely will not be recognized as Sinhala, or maybe even as a language? I do think that questions of use and of context matter in this kind of discussion - because ultimately it's the consequences of representation that matter. In the grand scheme of things, and in the grand scheme of colonial representation, the tote bag with Sinhala script doesn't rank very high in importance, but what do other people think?