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
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.
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.
While receiving numerous approving comments on the Chinese side, the Weibo repost was soon brought to the attention of South Korean internet users. Satires and insults directed at the producer and Chinese people flooded into South Korean forum thegogo, saying Yu’s claim was groundless. On Twitter, Korean users also created hashtags such as #hanbok_isnot_hanfu.
“China‘s ‘Culture Takeover’ is a problem that has long been taken seriously. Chinese believe that Korean culture like K-pop or hanbok, etc, is theirs,” says one Twitter user.
On Thursday, Yu posted nine ancient Chinese paintings portraying people of the Ming dynasty on his Instagram account and commented “Korea is China’s vassal state in the Ming Dynasty! Korean costumes are adopted from the Ming Dynasty! Here is the evidence!”
The post added fuel to the fierce debate between internet users in the two countries, with comments escalating to personal and political attacks.