A video capturing Lunar New Year celebrations at Disney California Adventure Park was posted on Disney Land’s Instagram on Jan. 18, with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse waving while wearing hanbok, or traditional Korean attire.
The two characters stood before a banner with “Lunar New Year” and New Year greetings in Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Video captions also included Happy Lunar New Year in English and New Year greetings in the three languages.
In the video’s comment section, angry Chinese users said the holiday should be called Chinese New Year and that the video engaged in cultural appropriation.
However, other commenters argued in favor of the Lunar New Year appellation.
As of Monday, the video had garnered over 1.3 million views and 4,400 comments on Instagram.
Seo Kyoung-duk, a professor at Sungshin Women’s University’s College of Creative Convergence Education, said the video correctly refers to the holiday as the Lunar New Year.
“Big events to celebrate the Lunar New Year have long been held in the Chinatowns of major Western cities, with the holiday eventually coming to be known as the Chinese New Year through media reports on the events,” Seo wrote on his Facebook page on Jan. 23.
“However, Lunar New Year isn’t only a holiday celebrated by China. It is celebrated by various Asian countries such as Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, and it’s correct to refer to it as the Lunar New Year.”
“It is very unwise for some Chinese people to bombard the world with comments, claiming that traditions shared by Asian countries are something exclusive to them based on a distorted sense of Sinocentrism and cultural hegemony.”
BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]
