By Cho Mu-hyun
Korean figure skating star Kim Yu-na’s picture has appeared in an American mathematics textbook.
According to business daily Asia Economy, the 21-year-old’s picture appears in a textbook called “Algebra and Trigonometry: A Graphic Approach.” The picture is known be in a chapter explaining why it is important to study trigonometry, and has been uploaded recently.
The chapter explains how trigonometry is closely related to our lives, giving a picture of Kim performing a spin move as an example. However, the book does not indentify who she is.
Her agency All That Sports is known to have received no prior notice of the picture before it was printed and spread to online communities, saying that in principle they should have been notified but plan no legal action against the publisher.
Netizens who saw the picture gave various reactions, such as “I am proud that Kim Yu-na is in an American textbook,” “They are guessing how many spins she did with mathematics,” and “No better way to know that you are popular than being in a textbook.”
One of those who commented on the picture is known to have asserted that this is not her first appearance in a textbook, saying Kim appeared in a French language book used in Japan as a representative figure of Korea.
According to a netizen called “bluesol” from the DC Inside online community, the previous version of the textbook had Chinese-American figure skater Michelle Kwan.