KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 ― The use of a made in China bibimbap in a television series has riled up Korea's social media.
The Korea Times reported that the main characters of tvN's series Vincenzo were seen eating Chinese sponsor Zihaiguo's bibimbap, a popular Korean rice dish, in the show.
In the episode that was aired on Sunday, the two lead characters ― Vincenzo (Song Joong-ki) and Hong Cha-young (Jeon Yeo-been) ― were having instant cup bibimbap together.
As the camera zoomed in on the cups, the brand of its Chinese sponsor, Zihaiguo, an unfamiliar name to most Koreans, became visible.
Viewers took to social media to slam the network for featuring the Chinese appropriation of the Korean dish.
Korea and China internet users were recently involved in a war of words after Chinese state-owned media outlet The Global Times claimed that the Korean staple side-dish is a variation on Chinese's pickled vegetable dish called “pao cai”.
Many raised concerns that the product placement would lead to Chinese arguing that bibimbap is a Chinese dish while others questioned whether those who watched this series would think bibimbap is a Chinese food.
Other viewers, however, defended tvN for its effort to cover the show's 20 billion won (RM73.04 million) budget.
The portal noted that this was not the first time tvN has raised domestic viewers' collective ire through controversial product placement deals with Chinese companies.
Comedy romance series True Beauty recently came under fire for excessive advertising of Chinese products and brands, placing banners of the e-commerce firm JD.com in bus stops and showing characters eating Chinese instant hot pot.
