China’s Controversial Claim on Korea’s Traditional Fan Dance, Stealing Culture?

Seo Kyung Duk, a professor at Sungshin Women’s University in South Korea, criticized China’s most used search engine, Baidu, for claiming that the Korean fan dance is a Chinese folk dance, which he refers to as cultural appropriation.

On the 19th, Professor Seo posted on social media, “Baidu Encyclopedia describes our fan dance as one of the traditional Chinese folk dances formed by the Han, Hani, and Chosun ethnic groups through a long history, each with different characteristics,” and pointed out that this is a “clear act of cultural appropriation.”

He added, “In May, the official social media account of the Hong Kong Palace Museum posted a picture of a person dressed in Hanbok and performing the fan dance, introducing it as a Chinese Dance, which caused great controversy. Despite continuous protest emails, they have not corrected it yet.”

Professor Seo emphasized, “The cultural appropriation from China continues with Hanbok, Kimchi, Arirang, and Pansori and other aspects of our culture. We need to pay more attention to the distortion of history by Japan and China.”

The fan dance, created by the veteran dancer Kim Baek-bong in 1954, is a new Korean dance. Performers wear Hanbok or Tang clothes and hold a gorgeous fan decorated with flower paintings or feathers in both hands, making various beautiful shapes. It established itself as a representative Korean dance work when it was performed as a group dance at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. It was designated as a masterpiece dance in 1992 and as Intangible Cultural Property No. 3 of South Pyongan Province in 2014.

By. Ee Seul Lee