China’s efforts to win an international certification for pao cai, a pickled vegetable dish from Sichuan Province, is turning into a social media showdown between Chinese and South Korean netizens over the origin of kimchi, a staple Korean cuisine made of cabbage.
Beijing recently won a certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for pao cai, an achievement the state-run Global Times reported as “an international standard for the kimchi industry led by China.”
South Korean media was fast to dispute such a claim and accuse the bigger neighbor of trying to make kimchi a type of China-made pao cai.
Photo: Reuters
The episode triggered anger on South Korean social media. “Its total nonsense, what a thief stealing our culture!” a South Korean netizen wrote on Naver.com, a widely popular Web portal.
“I read a media story that China now says kimchi is theirs, and that they are making international standard for it. It’s absurd. I’m worried that they might steal hanbok (South Korea’s national dress) and other cultural contents, not just kimchi,” said Kim Seol-ha, a 28-year old in Seoul.
Some South Korean media even described the episode as China’s “bid for world domination,” while some social media comments flagged concerns that Beijing was exercising “economic coercison.”
On China’s Twitter-like Weibo, Chinese netizens were claiming kimchi as their country’s own traditional dish, as most of kimchi consumed in South Korea is made in China.
“Well, if you don’t meet the standard, then you’re not kimchi,” one wrote on Weibo. “Even the pronunciation of kimchi originated from Chinese, what else is there to say,” wrote another.
South Korea’s agriculture ministry on Sunday released a statement saying mainly that the ISO approved standard does not apply to kimchi.
“It is inappropriate to report (about pao cai winning the ISO) without differentiating kimchi from pao cai of China’s Sichuan,” the statement said.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,