‘Don’t covet our culture’: South Korean presidential hopefuls hit out at China for hanbok at Winter Olympics opening ceremony

The resentment expressed by politicians in South Korea came amid public sensitivity about recent Chinese claims on the internet about parts of Korean culture

Some saw the reaction as misguided, saying it was clear that the woman in hanbok was representing the estimated 2 million ethnic Koreans living in China

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A performer in traditional Korean hanbok waves during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Friday. Photo: EPA

Published: 3:36pm, 8 Feb 2022

Major South Korean presidential candidates accused China of laying claim to their culture after a performer wore a traditional Korean dress during the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

A woman in a white and light purple hanbok dress marched alongside other performers apparently representing China’s various ethnic groups as they carried the Chinese national flag during Friday’s event at Beijing’s National Stadium.

The resentment expressed by politicians in South Korea came amid public sensitivity about recent Chinese claims on the internet about the origins of major Korean cultural items, including kimchi, a national dish of fermented cabbage.

Visitors wearing traditional Korean attire, including hanbok, visit Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul in 2019. Photo: AP

But some South Koreans saw the reaction by their politicians as misguided, saying it was clear that the woman was representing the estimated 2 million ethnic Koreans living in China.

Aside from the online bickering about kimchi and hanbok, South Korea and China also have a long history dispute over the domain of ancient kingdoms whose territories stretched from the Korean peninsula to Manchuria.

South Koreans see these kingdoms as Korean, but China began to claim them as part of its national history in the early 1980s. Experts say Beijing’s intent was to ideologically support its policies governing ethnic minorities, including the large communities of ethnic Koreans in the northeast, a group the hanbok-wearing performer was apparently representing at the Games’ opening ceremony.

“Do not covet the culture [of others],” Lee Jae-myung, a presidential candidate representing the ruling Democratic Party at the March election, wrote on Facebook hours after the event.