Mukbang YouTuber Hamzy fired by Chinese agency for saying kimchi, ssam ‘belong to Korea’ and backlash on Weibo
Hamzy is a YouTuber who is popular for her broadcasts that center on food that she tastes for her audience and in South Korea, this is popularly known as mukbang. The reason Hamzy is quite popular is for the amount of food she manages to eat in the videos that she posts and some dishes happen to be exotic as well. On January 18, Hamzy revealed that her Chinese agency who were helping her with promoting her video in the country had fired her. In a statement, Hamzy tried to clarify what exactly happened.
The YouTuber posted a video where she was seen eating Octopus bibimbap, white kimchi, and ssam and she explained how they were Korean food. In the comments section, one of her followers had said, "I was angry that Chinese people claimed that Ssam was theirs, but I'm happy that you posted a video of you eating vegetable wraps." Hamzy had ended up liking this comment resulting in argument and backlash in the comments section of that video. Things went out of hand when some of the commentators mistranslated and the Chinese fans believed that Hamzy had slandered against them and this resulted in heavy backlash on Weibo against her.
So her Chinese agency terminated the contract and all cooperative relationships with Hamzy and claimed that this was a result of fans in China being offended and Hamzy's disrespect. However, in her statement, Hamzy wrote according to AllKpop, "I had clicked on 'like' on a comment that stated about the Ssam. I only clicked 'like' on that comment because I believe that Kimchi and Ssam are foods that belong to our country (Korea), and I believe it is ridiculous that there is a debate on whether it belongs to Korean people or Chinese people."
She also told her followers that she had been informed about the contract being terminated on January 17. She then added that she would rather not promote in China than saying that kimchi is Chinese. She said, "If I have to say that Kimchi is a Chinese food to actively promote in China, then I choose not to promote at all in China. I hope that Chinese netizens understand that Chinese YouTubers or celebrities do not need to say that Chinese food is Korean to promote in Korea."
The fight over kimchi and ssam has been ongoing since November when China had won international certification for its dish Pao Cai which is a pickled dish made of cabbage similar to kimchi. This was reported by the state-run Global Times as “an international standard for the Kimchi industry led by China.” This led to a showdown between Korea and China about who kimchi belonged to. Pao Cai is a naturally fermented pickle dish that originates from the Sichuan region.