Chinese supermodel Liu Wen slammed on Instagram for referring to ‘Lunar New Year’
Internet users accuse world’s eighth highest-paid model of forgetting her roots in Instagram post with friend Wendi Deng Murdoch
Chinese supermodel Liu Wen has been criticised online for using the term “Lunar New Year” – rather than “Chinese New Year” – in an Instagram post to describe the annual festive season.
Liu, who was ranked the world’s eighth highest-paid model in 2017 by Forbes magazine, with earnings of US$6.5 million, quickly changed the caption on a photograph of herself with friend Wendi Deng Murdoch from “Happy Lunar New Year!” to “Happy Chinese New Year” after the social media post was overrun with negative comments.
“This is the downturn of your career, do you still know that you are Chinese?” a person wrote online.
“This is disgusting, you have used Chinese New Year in the past two years, why would you change it? This is very disappointing,” another said.
“Are you trying to appease the Koreans and the Vietnamese now? International supermodel!” another person wrote.
According to a report by Chinese news portal Thepaper.cn on Tuesday, the term “Chinese New Year” has been largely overtaken by “Lunar New Year” in the United States because Vietnamese and Korean people also celebrate the annual festival.
Every January to February, China, Korea, Vietnam, and other Asian countries including Singapore and Malaysia, celebrate the Lunar New Year as a national holiday.
Festive events promoted on the website of Disneyland in the United States use the term “Lunar New Year”, while Hong Kong and Shanghai Disneyland use “Chinese New Year” on their English-language pages.
“The Lunar New Year celebrated in Korea and Vietnam is not the same as the Chinese Lunar New Year, because the celebrations are completely different,” the website report said.
“China’s Spring Festival is more popular, more wide-reaching, more influential and has a stronger cultural basis around the world.”
