On May 24th, the YouTube channel “쉬는시간”, which deals with news about China, released a video about Zhang Yuan’s TikTok broadcast on May 15th.
In the video, Zhang Yuan claimed that the teaser video for the new song of the Korean girl group IVE reminded him of Chinese culture. Pointing out that the teaser release date and IVE’s concert date were all related to painful memories in China’s history, he demanded an explanation from the girl group’s agency.
Zhang Yuan also said he would visit Korea soon and discuss the content he would film with viewers.
He said, “I don’t hate Korea and I spent many years of my youth there. That’s why I have a lot of positive memories and emotions when it comes to Korea. Of course, bad sides exist. I’ll go to Korea soon and show you guys the real situation in Korea”, adding “Many Chinese TikTokers these days are manipulating content for the views. I think their videos show somewhat biased opinions. I’ll show you what Korea looks like for real from a neutral viewpoint”.
He continued, “I will also ask the people about Korea stealing Chinese culture. I want to know what they think about it. To do that, I will do an interview on the street and ask the people if they think Chinese elements such as Confucius, Chinese characters, Dano Holiday, etc. belong to Korean culture.”
Lastly, he said, “It doesn’t matter if the Korean media outlets made articles about what I said. I want Korean people, IVE, and their agency to know about it”.
As such, Zhang Yuan’s claim stimulated another cultural conflict between Korea and China. Criticizing Zhang Yuan’s opinions, Korean netizens commented, “I hope you don’t come to Korea”, “Who said Confucius and Chinese characters were from Korea? It’s not true”, “I think Zhang Yuan is just trying to gain attention and views”, etc.
Source: wikitree
