Recently, while the girl group New Jeans promoted Korean paper and was ‘terrorized with malicious comments’ by Chinese netizens, Professor Seo Kyung-duk criticized it on the 11th as “distorted patriotism.”
New Jeans appeared in the promotional video for the ‘2022 Korean Wave-linked Collaborative Content Planning and Development Support Project’ by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Craft & Design Culture Promotion Agency, which was released on the 6th.
In the video, New Jeans members introduce the long history of hanji, its excellent durability and functionality, and experience the production of hanji themselves.
The video was all about Hanji. There was no mention of papermaking at all. However, netizens presumed to be Chinese flocked to New Jeans’ Instagram and criticized them with various malicious comments.
A Chinese netizen wrote, “Papermaking was invented in China and spread all over the world.” In addition, malicious comments from Chinese netizens such as “Why do Koreans steal everything? Aren’t you ashamed?” and “Stop Koreans stealing Chinese heritage.”
Regarding this, Professor Seo said through social network service (SNS) that day, “This video is not about papermaking, but a promotional video about the excellence of Hanji.” there is,” he claimed.
He added, “Currently, as Korean traditional culture and popular culture are attracting attention from people around the world, Chinese netizens feel a sense of crisis and are revealing a distorted patriotism phenomenon.”
Reporter Shin Hyun-ah, Hankyung.com sha0119@hankyung.com