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| Speedskater Cha Min-kyu poses with the silver medal after coming in second in the men's 500-meter race at the National Speedskating Oval in Beijing, Saturday. Yonhap |
By Park Han-sol
As with many other international sporting events, the Beijing Winter Olympics has not been free from controversy.
Between Korea and China, such a dispute has materialized and has become a fierce war of words among the two countries' online users ― a phenomenon that has been specifically witnessed on the social media accounts of various Korean athletes and stars.
Speedskater Cha Min-kyu, who claimed the silver medal in the men's 500-meter race, Saturday, became subject to a barrage of malicious comments left by Chinese online users on Instagram, Twitter and Weibo, among others, when he physically wiped the podium twice before ascending it during the award ceremony.
Some Chinese online users saw this action to be a sign of protest in regards to the questionable judging of earlier short track speedskating races, where two Korean skaters were disqualified from the men's 1,000-meter semifinals. They connected his act to a similar gesture made by the Canadian short-track men's relay team in the 5,000-meter race at the podium during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. It was speculated then that the bronze medal winners were raising a silent objection to the result of a different race that got another Canadian team disqualified.
Since Saturday's race, the image of Cha wiping the podium with the caption, "I'm cleaning my grave," spread quickly among Chinese online users, with others resorting to a series of ad hominem attacks and comments like, "a country that can't afford to lose."
Meanwhile, the speedskater clarified the next day that his gesture was done out of respect and honor to the award ceremony.
The comments on the Instagram account of Hwang Dae-heon, who brought Korea's first gold in the men's 1,500-meter short track speedskating competition last week, were hardly different. Hwang was one of the two skaters disqualified due to the controversial judging.
After the Feb. 9 race, where he won the gold, his Instagram has been flooded with comments written in Mandarin and English, such as "disgusting player," "dirty medal" and "bastards should kneel down to China," in addition to vomiting and feces emojis.
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| Actress Park Shin-hye clad in turquoise hanbok / Captured from Park's Instagram |
Along with Korean athletes, K-pop celebrities and actors have also been the latest figures to face a deluge of online attacks from Chinese internet users, notably the ones who shared photos of themselves dressed in hanbok and stating its origin as Korean.
Last week, Hyoyeon of Girls' Generation uploaded photos of herself dancing with a fan in black traditional attire on Instagram, writing, "Korean hanbok is beautiful." Actress Park Shin-hye followed suit, posting an image of herself posing in hanbok, with the hashtag, "#hanbok" and "#koreantraditionalclothes."
Suga of BTS similarly shared a picture of himself wearing a modernized "gonryongpo" (a dragon-embroidered robe reserved for royal family members during the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom) as a throwback to his solo album, "Agust D."
The posting of these images comes after China's controversial inclusion of the traditional Korean attire in its Olympic opening ceremony in order to represent one of the ethnic minority groups in the country ― a decision, although seemingly harmless, is seen by some Koreans to be part of their neighbor's long-standing attempt to claim Korea's national history and culture.
Chinese web users' comments made in response to this series of posts include, "Don't try to steal our culture" and "Doesn't your country teach history?" along with a flood of offensive emojis, leading one star, Hyoyeon, to disable the comments on her post.
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