Criticizing IVE and BTS For Similar Cultural Reasons, Chinese Netizens Backed Down Upon Facing ARMY

Releasing their second mini album “IVE SWITCH” on April 29th, IVE placed No.3 on the Worldwide iTunes Album Chart and topped the charts in 16 countries as of the 30th. The title song “HEYA” also achieved No.1 on iTunes Top Song Chart in 3 countries. The music video for “HEYA” surpassed 10 million views within only 19 hours and rose to No.1 on YouTube Worldwide Trending on April 30th. These achievements are impressive as the Korean music industry is paying attention to HYBE’s internal conflict.

However, IVE still doesn’t have a smooth comeback due to unreasonable claims from Chinese netizens. In particular, many Chinese people are accusing IVE’s music video of stealing Chinese culture.

“HEYA” stands out with a unique concept interpreting various Korean traditional cultures and symbols. Various Korean elements such as jeogori, norigae, smoking pipe, etc. were portrayed in the music video to give off a traditional Korean style.

Park Ji-eun, who was in charge of directing, creating 2D concept art, and designing characters for IVE’s music video, explained on her blog, saying “Of the three East Asian countries, Korea is the only country that uses the term ‘oriental painting’ or ‘Korean painting’. These are characteristics of Korean history”, adding “It’s a classic yet trendy interpretation of the traditional but unfamiliar Korean aesthetics through traditional portraits, landscape paintings, and genre paintings”. 

Despite the explanation, Chinese Internet users still made absurd claims that ink paintings and even the members’ hair knots belong to Chinese culture. In fact, this is not the first time Chinese people caused such an issue. However, only the girl group was criticized. They criticized IVE’s Jang Won-young for wearing phoenix binyeo to the 2022 Paris Fashion Week and claimed that BLACKPINK Jennie wore an outfit similar to a Chinese character at a fashion event.

They did raise the issue against boy groups such as BTS but later lowered their voice due to the group’s strong fandom power. After winning at the 2020 Van Fleet Awards, BTS delivered their acceptance speech, saying “We will not forget the painful history shared by Korea and the US as well as the people who sacrificed”. Because of that, the boy group faced a backlash from Chinese netizens for ignoring the sacrifices of Chinese soldiers during the Korean War. However, criticism stopped after being overpowered by global ARMYs (BTS’s fandom).

In this regard, experts, such as Professor Seo Kyung-duk at Sungshin Women’s University, analyzed Chinese netizens’ behaviors as a result of their inferiority towards Korea. Sociology Professor Yang Seung-hoon at Kyungnam University also said, “Since Korea, China and Japan shared the same Taoist philosophy for 2000 years, it’s hard to consider this a problem. In China, state-run media is leading such issues and critical public opinions”.

Source: daum