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Mocking of Suntory’s mixed-race Japanese-Korean models and actresses by DHL cosmetics CEO outrages internet
- Yoshiaki Yoshida, the boss of a top cosmetics firm, used an offensive term for Koreans – then said everything at his company was ‘pure Japanese’
- Now some Koreans are calling for a boycott of Japan
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Social media users in South Korea have reacted furiously to remarks attributed to the CEO of one of Japan’s leading cosmetics companies, calling for a boycott of DHC Corp. And the campaign appears to be attracting both attention and support in Japan.
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In a comment reported on the Tokyo-based company’s website, DHC CEO Yoshiaki Yoshida criticised Suntory, another Japanese company that is a rival to DHC in the health supplements sector.
“For some reason, the models hired to appear in Suntory commercials are almost all Korean-Japanese,” he said. “So that’s why it seems they are mocked on the internet as ‘Chon-tory’,” he wrote. “Chon” is a discriminatory term for Koreans among some in Japan.
Yoshida emphasised his point by adding, “Everything at DHC is pure Japanese, including the actors we hire [for advertising]. DHC is a well-established company, almost reaching our 50th anniversary.”
Yoshida’s comments were made in November but were only recently picked up by social media users in Japan. As soon as the remarks were highlighted on Twitter and other platforms, South Korean media began reporting the issue.
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The reply from Korean consumers was swift, with many taking to social media to declare that they would no longer purchase DHC products, resuscitating a campaign to not purchase Japanese imports that began when Seoul and Tokyo were engaged in a war of words over their shared history earlier in the year but subsequently began to fade.
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