Korean or Chinese? Debate over poet Yun Dong-joo’s identity reignites China vs Korea ‘kimchi wars’ dispute

Using the official Chinese term for ethnic Koreans living in China to describe the late poet is a ‘historical distortion’, according to one Korean academic

Yet determining which country can claim him as their own is difficult, given that he died before the birth of both modern-day China and South Korea

Reading Time:4 minutes

A bust of Yun Dong-joo is seen in Mingdong village, northeastern China’s Jilin province. Photo: Handout

Park Chan-kyongin SeoulandEduardo Baptistain Hong Kong

Published: 8:34pm, 19 Feb 2021Updated: 9:37pm, 19 Feb 2021

South Korea’s foreign ministry has reached out to Beijing to smooth over an online dispute between nationals from both sides over the late poet Yun Dong-joo, who was born in Mingdong, a village in present day northeast China.

Yun – the son of Korean Christians who left the Korean peninsula in the late 19th century to escape famine – took part in the struggle for independence against Japanese imperialism when both the peninsula and northeast China, historically known as Manchuria, were under Japanese occupation.

In 2012, authorities in Mingdong village – which is located in Longjing city, China’s Jilin province – converted the poet’s ancestral home into a tourist attraction. A plaque near the entrance describes Yun, who Koreans refer to as Yoon, as a “Chinese ethnic Korean patriotic poet”.

But this plaque, as well as a description of Yun on the Chinese-language Wikipedia-like Baidu Baike website, have been criticised as a “historical distortion” by Seo Kyoung-duk, a professor at Sungshin University in Seoul, who wrote a lengthy Facebook post on the subject last week.

Yun Dong-joo's birthplace in Mingdong, modern-day Jilin province. Photo: Handout

The issue, Seo said, stems from Baidu Baike’s use of the word chaoxianzu – the official Chinese term for ethnic Koreans living in China – to describe not just Yun, but a long list of other notable Koreans, including independence activists Lee Bon-chang and Yoon Bong-gil; King Sejong the Great of Korea’s Josean dynasty (1392–1897); and even celebrities born in modern-day South Korea such as competitive figure skater Kim Yuna and actress Lee Young-ae.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x