“Don’t steal our culture.” Following THIS promotional clip, NewJeans members were bombarded by criticism from Chinese netizens.
This is why they receive malicious comments.
NewJeans Introduces ‘Hanji’ in Collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
(Photo: NewJeans (Star News))
On January 6, “rookie monster” NewJeans appeared on a promotional videos released by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Craft and Design Culture Promotion Institute.
The video, the project “2022 Korean Wave-linked Collaborative Content Planning and Development Support” introduces the girl group as “Korean Wave IP”.
(Photo: Minji (Money Today))
In particular, the commercial contains NewJeans which globally promotes Hanji’s excellence and Hanji’s new cultural products which include a talk show with that theme.
The quintet also showcased the traditional way of opening Hanji flowers and making Hanji lamps with Hanji jang, a national intangible cultural asset.
To enhance the video promoting culture, NewJeans even wears modern hanboks that highlight their beauty while talking about the advantages, charm and value of traditional paper (Hanji), revealing five relevant keywords.
In the video, fans around the world can also see NewJeans personally pulling a Hanji set made from jiseung crafts, admiring Hanji products and watching a craftsman demonstrate a delicate creation of Hanji, each member selecting their favorite flower to experience the art.
NewJeans Terrorized For Promoting Hanji
(Photo: NewJeans (News1))
Following the video, many Koreans were delighted that the girl group decided to promote the product, amidst the weakening of the Hanji industry in the last 50 years. Koreans hope that the quintet’s influence and power will encourage not only local but also international fans to embrace its prominence.
However, Chinese netizens came to NewJeans official SNS (Instagram, YouTube). express their anger over groups and clips.
In context, some Chinese web users accused NewJeans of promoting Korea theft their culture.
(Photo: Haerin (Money Today))
- “The art of papermaking belongs to China, and Korea only inherited China’s papermaking technology. They are trying to take our culture as if it were Korean technology itself.”
- “Koreans stole our Chinese culture. You didn’t even try to know our history before stealing it.”
- “China is still the first country to make paper.”
- “This is ridiculous.”
Chinese netizens are also disappointed with NewJeans for allegedly being a platform for spreading “misinformation” and “cultural theft”.
(Photo: NewJeans (TopStarNews))
On the other hand, Koreans and K-pop fans have defended the “Hype Boy” singer, stressing that the group promotes Hanji, Korean traditional paper, not papermaking itself.
- “This isn’t a video about paper-making technology, it’s a video about Korean paper.”
- “The Chinese can’t even tell the difference between paper technology and Korean paper products.”
- “When did the video say that Korea is the originator of papermaking?”
(Photo: NewJeans (News1))
Because the topic sparked hot discussions among Korean and Chinese netizens, spreading on various SNS and online communities, even the Korea Paper Association decided to stand up for NewJeans.
“Papermaking technology was introduced from China’s Cai Lun technology, and there is no introduction of Korea as the inventor of papermaking in NewJeans’ hanji promotional video.”
READ MORE: Unedited’s NewJeans Visual Is a Hot Topic– Here’s Why
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KpopStarz owns this article.
Written by Eunice Dawson.
