▲ A woman who appeared in opening ceremony of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics with wearing Hanbok

China's claim that Hanbok originated by Hanfu, a traditional clothes of their minority group, and it is their culture is being controversial. In the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, some women were even wearing Hanbok, which provoked a lot of Korean people.

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was held on February 4th. Some countries boycotted this Olympics because of the reasons such as COVID-19, but the Olympics seemed to be held smoothly. However, problems began during the live broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. A woman who was wearing Hanbok, which is a traditional Korean cloth, appeared in the ceremony. A lot of people recognized that the cloth is Hanbok and became angry at why their traditional clothes appeared as a Chinese tradition.

▲ Chinese performers playing Janggu in opening ceremony

Moreover, Chinese dancers in the ceremony performed the traditional Korean Folk dance known as pungmul, which was added to the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014. In addition, there was a performance in which performers wore Hanbok and played the Korean drums named Janggu like this tradition is theirs. The Korean netizens who saw this opening ceremony claimed this is a kind of Northeastern Project, and we need to confront China squarely.

Because of their actions in China, Korean people are coming into conflict with Chinese people. There are a lot of people saying that they did not know that China distorted the culture in such an international event, and this is definitely a kind of Northeastern Project by China. In the political community, lots of people suggested that the government should respond extraordinarily to China's cultural invasion. Lots of Korean and Chinese people on the Internet are still conflicting with each other, and many Korean people want China's elucidation and apology.

by Young Chae Lee