China's 'cultural appropriation' continues with hanbok featured at Beijing Winter Olympics

A performer dressed in the traditional Korean clothing known as hanbok, front row second from right, waves at the audience during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games at the National Stadium in Beijing, Friday. Yonhap

By Park Han-sol

Amid the visual spectacle of the Beijing Winter Olympics' opening ceremony on Friday, what caught Korean viewers' eyes was none other than the attire of one particular performer.

At the beginning of the ceremony, a woman clad in a snow-white "jeogori" top and pale pink "chima" skirt ― which together constitute traditional Korean dress called "hanbok" ― was seen carrying the Chinese national flag as one of the representatives of 56 recognized ethnic groups in the country.

The inclusion of the hanbok clothing as a way to represent the ethnic Korean minority in China has sparked anger among viewers here in Korea, who view it to be yet another form of "cultural appropriation" by Beijing aimed at the culture of its neighboring country.

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Korea's Sports Minister Hwang Hee, who attended the event wearing hanbok himself, told the press on Saturday, "Such a depiction could prompt misunderstanding among other countries that the origin of Korean culture stems from China."

In fact, China's recent string of claims to Korean cultural heritage such as hanbok clothing, the fermented side dish kimchi and "gat," or traditional hats worn by men during the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, have amounted to a prominent source of growing anti-China sentiment here.

This sense of antipathy runs deep especially among younger Koreans, who see these assertions of Beijing as an "imminent threat" to their cultural identity, Joo Chang-yun, a professor of communications and media at Seoul Women's University, said in an interview with The Korea Times last year.

Kimchi / Getty images

The cultural clash between the two countries intensified in November 2020 when Beijing received an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification for its pickled vegetable dish, "paocai." Chinese state-run media, the Global Times, subsequently reported that this certification set "an international standard for the kimchi industry led by China" ― a dubious claim criticized and refuted by Korea's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

"China's 'pao cai' has nothing to do with Korea's kimchi," the ministry said, adding that the ISO certification for the Chinese salt-cured vegetable dish plainly states, "This document does not apply to kimchi."

That same month, the origin of hanbok clothing sparked another feud, when a flood of Chinese internet users argued that the costume is part of Chinese culture as it originates from "hanfu," the traditional attire worn by the Han people during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Chinese mobile gaming company Paper Games even shut down the Korean server for its dress-up game, "Shining Nikki," after disputes arose regarding its inclusion of hanbok as Korean.

This cultural spat and subsequent rising anti-China sentiment continued into last year as well. In March, this led to a widespread boycott among Koreans against a fantasy period drama series, "Joseon Exorcist," for featuring Chinese-style costumes and props while being set in the early Joseon era. The public backlash ultimately pushed the show's broadcaster, SBS, to cancel the show altogether less than a week after its premiere ― an unprecedented move in the history of domestic TV.

The latest controversy came last December when Chinese actor Caesar Wu posted on Weibo that "'gat' originated from China and subsequently spread to other countries," prompting wide support from local online users in his country and harsh criticism from Koreans, on the contrary.

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