On July 6th (local time), some netizens posted negative comments about IVE on social media ahead of the group’s concert in Hong Kong, claiming that the costumes and props in several scenes of their music videos “HEYA” and “Accendio” were stolen from Chinese culture.
“HEYA” music video is known to have included many Korean elements. IVE’s leader Ahn Yu-jin once introduced the MV, saying “We tried to express the beauty of Korean culture through the music video by including Korean traditions everywhere, from our stage to our costumes”. However, Chinese netizens argued that those details, from the cloud patterns to the landscape background, shoes with embroidery, fan shapes, knots, and the patterns on the copper coins, were all traditional Chinese cultural elements.
Later, IVE released another music video for the second title track “Accendio” and also suffered a backlash from Chinese netizens. Many people claimed that the image of the grave at a coal mine in Shanxi Province was used in the music video to mock China’s historical pain.
In addition, some also poured criticism over IVE doing a concert in Hong Kong on July 7th, saying “Today is July 7th”, “They’ll be dancing in Hong Kong on the day of the July 7th incident (the event that triggered the China-Japan war)”, etc.
This is not the first time Chinese netizens have accused K-pop artists of stealing Chinese culture and many have released positions to refute this.
On May 1st, Professor Seo Kyung-deok from Sungshin University expressed frustration toward people trying to make connections between Chinese culture and IVE music video. He angrily said, “Starting with kimchi and hanbok, Korean culture, such as samgyetang and fan dance, has been claimed to be Chinese. Now, they are even accusing K-pop stars of stealing Chinese culture”. The professor emphasized, “As Korean content is drawing keen attention from people around the world, Chinese netizens’ inferiority complex seems to have become too severe”.
Meanwhile, IVE will continue their world tour with the next concert in Manila on the 13th, Melbourne on the 25th, Sydney on the 28th of this month and Jakarta on August 24th.
