Professor Seo Kyung-duk Counters Chinese Netizens Criticizing IVE’s Korean-style MV
On May 1st, Professor Seo Kyung-duk of Sungshin Women’s University shared, “Starting with kimchi and hanbok, they also claimed other Korea’s representative culture such as samgyetang and fan dance as ‘Chinese’. Now they are also claiming scenes in K-pop stars’ music videos as Chinese culture”.
In particular, he emphasized, “As content with Korean culture is attracting keen attention from people around the world, Chinese netizens’ sense of inferiority has become too severe. It’s just regrettable that they cannot escape from the ‘twisted Sinocentrism”.
The girl group IVE recently released their second EP album with a music video for the title track “HEYA”. The music video features costumes such as jeogori (Korean traditional clothes), Korean traditional fans, norigae (Korean traditional ornaments worn by women), paintings, and Korean tigers. Introducing the group’s music video, member Ahn Yu-jin said, “It’s so meaningful to shoot a Korean-style music video for ‘HEYA’ and prepare such outfits. We had so much fun during the preparation”.
This is not the first time that China has made such absurd accusations. When IVE’s Jang Won-young attended the Paris Fashion Week in 2022 wearing a phoenix binyeo (Korean traditional ornamental hairpin), many Chinese people commented, she said, “I brought this binyeo along from Korea because I wanted to showcase the beauty of Korea in Paris”.
In response, a Chinese influencer said, “Binyeo with phoenix patterns is a unique Chinese feature. It’s so common for Koreans to steal our culture but I cannot understand how a public figure could behave like this”.
In addition, Chinese Internet users also ridiculed the setting of “Exhuma” actors drawing Chinese characters on their faces, saying “Writing or engraving words on the face is a very insulting and humiliating act in Chinese culture. It’s funny to see some Chinese people saying these Korean people look cool”, stimulating Korean movie fans’ frustration.
Despite criticizing “Exhuma”, Chinese people were caught watching the movie illegally. At that time, Professor Seo also pointed out the issue of Korean content being distributed illegally in China and urged the Chinese authorities to come up with a solution for it.
