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omonatheydid
Conflicts between the South Korean and Chinese delegations at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics have set off a storm of public outrage from both countries, with several Korean celebrities getting involved in the furor.
The controversies began with the opening ceremonies, when a performer dressed in traditional Korean hanbok was included in the segment representing 56 ethnic minority groups of China and other various Chinese cultural representations. Many Korean netizens reacted with anger to what they perceived as yet another attempt by Chinese media to lay claim to Korean culture, and public figures and politicians condemned the inclusion of hanbok at the event and the depiction of Koreans as an ethnic minority of China.
The controversies began with the opening ceremonies, when a performer dressed in traditional Korean hanbok was included in the segment representing 56 ethnic minority groups of China and other various Chinese cultural representations. Many Korean netizens reacted with anger to what they perceived as yet another attempt by Chinese media to lay claim to Korean culture, and public figures and politicians condemned the inclusion of hanbok at the event and the depiction of Koreans as an ethnic minority of China.
"It is their desire and right for representatives of each ethnic group in China to attend an international sports competition and the major national event of the Beijing Winter Olympics, wearing their traditional costumes," [...] China respects Korea's historical and cultural traditions, the official added, expressing hope that "The South Korean side will also respect the emotions of China's ethnic minorities, including joseokjok."
Similar controversy over the depictions of Joseon-jok in China also emerged when promotional footage for the 2022 Beijing Olympics released last year included images of hanbok and sangmo dancers, another touchstone of Korean traditional culture. Meanwhile, some Chinese netizens have taken to social media to rebut Korean netizen's complaints by claiming that Korea is a 소국 (minor/tribute country) that doesn't know its own history or recognize and respect its cultural inheritance from China.
The historical roots of the controversy go back to the relationships between the medieval Chinese empires and the kingdoms of the modern-day Korean peninsula. Certain Chinese scholarship claims that the pre-Joseon kingdoms of Goguryeo and Balhae (c. 30 BC - 900 AD) were in fact established as Chinese territories and much of traditional Korean culture was implanted by Chinese empires during the periods of Chinese empirical claim over the Korean kingdoms. Korean historians deny these claims as historical distortion and nationalistic revisionism, arguing that the Korean kingdoms maintained their sovereign cultural identity throughout its written history.
Further conflict erupted after a series of controversial judgments in the short-track events on February 7th, including disqualifications of Korean contenders. In the 1000m short-track event, South Korean skater Hwang Dae-heon finished first in the first semi-final, yet was disqualified after review for an "illegal late pass causing contact." (I can't find non-region-locked videos of this but there's a clip of the pass in question at the link for those curious) South Korea's Lee June-seo finished second in the second heat, only to be disqualified for the same reason.
The disqualifications resulted in Chinese skaters Li Wenlong and Wu Dajing advancing to the finals. The South Korean skating officials and commentators reacted with incredulity at the disqualifications, particularly Hwang's, and Korean media and public began claiming the Koreans had been victimized by biased officiating intended to benefit the Chinese athletes, with no Chinese skaters receiving penalties for similar infractions.
These sentiments were further aggravated when Hungary's Shaolin Liu was disqualified for accrued penalties during the 1000m finals, allowing China's Ren Ziwei to claim gold. Both Hungarian and Korean delegations filed complaints with the ISU (International Skating Union), which were rejected.
Meanwhile, the anger from the Korean and Chinese public over the combined controversies and general anti-Korean and anti-Chinese sentiment spilled into various media channels and online spaces. Shortly after the 1000m final results, phrases such as "why bother holding the Olympics" and "just take all the medals" trended on Korean Twitter. SBS even followed their February 7th Olympics broadcast with a special segment of the 'top 10 times China cheated at the Olympics.'
After two Korean skaters and a Hungarian were disqualified from the 1000m short track, allowing China to pick up the gold medal, Korean broadcaster SBS followed up the coverage with a special segment, "Top 10 worst moments of cheating by China". 🤣 pic.twitter.com/g9ftoeyWyt
— Kwon Jang-Ho 권장호 (@janghokwon) February 7, 2022
Several public figures and celebrities found themselves in the crosshairs of netizens from either or both countries after commenting directly or indirectly on the controversies.
Veteran short-track speed skater and former World Champion Kwak Yoon-gy was among the first to directly accuse the Olympics of biased officiating after the mixed relay semifinal heat on February 5th. The US and ROC teams were disqualified while China was allowed to advance and ultimately win gold in the short-track mixed relay despite a botched hand-off between Chinese team members:
"If it had been any other country than China in that situation, I wondered if that team would still have been allowed to reach the final like that," [...] "I felt that could have been us at the wrong end of all this. I thought about how upsetting and frustrating it would have been if we'd been a part of that"
Shortly afterward, Kwak's social media received hate comments from Chinese netizens in Chinese, English, and Korean as well as the "small size" emojis, which he screencapped and uploaded with the caption: "getting cheered on by China ^.^V"
screencap of comments on Kwak's IG
Meanwhile, two former Korean skaters who naturalized to China to compete for and coach the Chinese national team, Victor Ahn (formerly Ahn Hyunsoo) and Lim Hyo-jun, have been receiving hate comments from Koreans for expressing pro-Chinese sentiments during the controversies. Ahn's wife Woo Nari also closed her Instagram comments after her posts were flooded with anti-Chinese Korean comments and anti-Korean Chinese comments. Ahn begged netizens to not harass his family in a social media post that has since been deleted.
Aespa's Chinese member Ningning posted to Bubble in Chinese and Korean, celebrating China's gold in the mixed relay event, congratulating all the athletes on their hard work and stating "all the people on earth are one family." This incited a mix of hate and support comments from fans and Korean and Chinese netizens. Korean responses ranged from demanding Ningning go back to China to insisting she hadn't done anything wrong, while Chinese comments included congratulating Ningning for angering Koreans and saying she had nothing to be afraid of because the power of China was behind her.
Ningning's Bubble messages
Former newscaster and MC Jang Sung-kyu uploaded an image of Hwang Dae-heon's supposed foul with the caption "calling this cheating is cheating" and the hashtags "Beijing (pun for slicing) the nose right off your face" and "ABeijing results" and received hate comments from Chinese netizens. He screencapped one made on a post about his son with the tongue-in-cheek message: "Dear Chinese people, everything else is fine but please don't touch my son's private parts. I'm asking nicely."
Jang's first post and second post calling out a hate comment
Rapper D.Ark, who is an ethnic Korean Joseon-jok with Chinese nationality, responded to a fan's DM on what he thought of the short-track officiating with the (Korean) comment: "the judging is complete shit." However the fan uploaded this exchange to an online community on the 8th, and D.Ark deleted his social media account on the 9th after receiving hate comments from Chinese netizens and posted an apology in Chinese to Weibo and stated, "I was angry that the referee's call damaged the reputation of the Chinese athlete and my home country. I haven't forgotten my roots. I'm working hard at studying the Chinese language and I'll make good music. [...] As a Chinese Joseon-jok, I am honored to promote Chinese traditional culture in Korea."
screencap of D.Ark's DM conversation and Weibo apology
Even BTS couldn't escape the ire of netizens, as RM posted a image of Hwang Dae-heon passing the Chinese skaters in the 1000m semifinals to his Instagram stories. Meanwhile, Suga posted an image of himself in hanbok from the set of his Daechwita music video, which many interpreted as a veiled response to the opening ceremony controversy. In response, Chinese netizens flooded BTS's official Instagram with anti-Korean hate comments, puke emojis and "small size" emojis. ARMY promptly responded with their own flood of purple hearts.
https://instagram.com/p/CZtdx34p3WR
RM's screencap of Hwang Dae-heon
Sample Chinese netizen comments & ARMY response
Amidst the ongoing furor, Hwang Dae-heon won a decisive gold medal in the 1500m short-track event on February 10th. Seemingly unfazed by the netizen response, RM posted again to his stories celebrating Hwang Dae-heon's win.
RM's response to Hwang's gold medal
After his 1500m win, Hwang's recent social media posts were inundated with over a million hate comments from Chinese netizens before his account was deactivated later that day.
comments from Hwang's SNS
Meanwhile, Chinese ambassador to Korea Xing Haiming issued congratulations to Hwang, stating:
"With regard to the athlete Hwang Dae-heon's performance, Chinese people are also positively evaluating it in show of the true friendship of the two countries' people."
Sources: Yonhap News 1 2, Korea Herald 1 2 3 4, NBC Olympics, namuwiki (video clips), @janghokwon, 서울신문, Newsis 1 2, agustd, 스포츠경향, 머니투데이, 서울경제 1 2
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no subject
Date: 2022-02-10 09:18 pm (UTC)Seriously, no international event goes by without nationalists going ham on social media comment sections. Wish we could give them their own separate online playground so they wouldn't have to bother the rest of us. Like, I'm just here to stare absentmindedly at different sports I know nothing about...
no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 10:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-12 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 07:54 am (UTC)i saw the short track heat live and was really surprised by the disqualification though.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 10:22 am (UTC)I feel terrible for him though. I was checking his IG after his gold (which was completely unrelated to China btw) and the sheer volume and vitriol of the hate was really scary to watch unfold in real time. One post got up to 1.2 million comments, a lot of which were incredibly vile, then it was taken down, then I saw another get up to 20,000 in less than an hour before his whole acct got deactivated. It’s back up now, in part bc I think he has contractual sponsorship obligations, but thankfully with limited comments ㅠㅠ He still has events to compete in too, I can’t imagine the amount of mental fortitude it takes to not get rattled by all this
no subject
Date: 2022-02-11 06:13 pm (UTC)this is such a good point!
i watched this heat live because my country would be competing later, and the commentators were also really surprised by the disqualification, saying it was too strict.
the mental pressure these athletes are already facing when competing in the olympics must be multiplied by people pouring their nationalist (and often also racist, xenophopic) sentiments on their social media.. i hope they monitor the comments for them.