Currently if you search singer ‘Hyori’ tag on instagram a lot of completely irrelevant photos will appear.
These are photos of Chinese President Xi Jinping, lined-up tanks, Tiananmen Square protests, Sejong the Great, phrase asking apologize. This happened after Hyori talked about choosing her stage name as ‘Mao’ on the program ‘How do you play’ aired on August 22. In response, Chinese netizens immediately attacked Hyori, saying that she deprecated their father Mao Zedong.
Korean netizens are very confused because there are not many Koreans thought of Mao Zedong after hearing the word Mao. But the controversy did not stop there. Many Chinese fans left hate comments on Hyori’s instagram, tagging her on abusive photos. Lee Hyo-ri’s latest post had more than 210,000 comments.
Chinese netizens demanded Lee Hyo-ri to ‘apologize to Chinese,’ and at the same taime criticizing the great people of Korea. In response, Korean netizens posted images of China’s pro-democracy suppression movements, including the Tiananmen Square incident. And in the end, the production team edited that part of Hyori.
In fact, this controversy originated from a misunderstanding, but the motions between two countries are expected to remain deep. China has been showing off its power several times, causing great inconvenience to other countries. China has strengthened the hegemonism openly since President Xi Jinping took office in 2013. In 2017, the THAAD issue caused economic retaliation against Korea, it is also an opportunity for the anti-Chinese sentiment to strengthen in Korea.
While the old problems are still existing, many Chinese netizens are leaving hate comments on a Korean celebrity for an unreasonable issue, showing that the way of solving problems of Chinese netizens are irrational. In the future, there is a high possibility that China will continue oppressing other countries.
China is closely related Korean economy, but it is more and more distant in the two countries’ relationship. Will we be able to make a true friend by strength? What is the real face of China?
Souces: Naver
