Hanfu vs hanbok: Chinese, Koreans dispute costume’s origins after actor’s Weibo selfie goes viral

A photo posted on Weibo by Chinese actor Xu Kai shows him on the set of TV series Royal Feast wearing a costume that resembles Korean hanbok

The drama’s producer maintains it is hanfu, which ancient Koreans adopted from China in the Ming dynasty – a statement that South Koreans aren’t happy about

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Characters from mobile game Shining Nikki wear hanbok, which South Korean internet users argue originated in Korea. A Chinese actor’s post in traditional costume described as hanfu set off a clash between Chinese and South Korean internet users over the origins of the costume.

Published: 5:15pm, 6 Nov 2020Updated: 6:32am, 7 Nov 2020

Costumes in a new Chinese drama have sparked fierce exchange of words between Chinese and South Korean internet users, amid rising nationalism and cultural consciousness in both countries.

At the heart of the storm was a photo posted on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform in China, by a Chinese actor named Xu Kai on Wednesday. The selfie shows him wearing traditional costume that resembles Korean hanbok.

Most Chinese audiences are familiar with the hanbok because of the 2003 hit Korean drama Dae Jang Geum. Criticism for the new drama, named Royal Feast, soon flooded in from both Korean and some Chinese internet users, saying that the costume design was stolen from Korean culture.

In response, the drama’s producer Yu Zheng reposted the photo and said: “This is definitely hanfu of the Ming Dynasty, and it cannot be described as ‘hanbok’ by the illiterate just because it was adopted in ‘Goryeo’, which was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty.” Goryeo was a Korean kingdom founded in 918 which became the Joseon kingdom in 1392, and which was considered a tributary or subordinate state by China.

Chinese actor Xu Kai posted a selfie that shows him wearing a set of traditional costume which resembles Korean traditional costume hanbok.

Hanfu is a general term to describe the traditional Chinese clothing in feudal dynasties ruled by the Han people, the most populous ethnic group in China. The Ming dynasty, which was founded by Zhu Yuanzhang, a Han Chinese, ruled China from 1368 to 1644.