4) Controversy over the name of kimchi / pao cai

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism prescribed in its Directive No. 427 “Guidelines for Foreign Language Translation and Mark of Public Terminology” enacted in July last year, “The idiomatic word of the food name already widely used in China is recognized,” adopting Pao Cai (泡菜) as a Chinese translation of kimchi as an example. VANK, a Voluntary Agency Network of Korea, asked the relevant authorities on January 11 to rectify this (Chosun Ilbo, January 12, 2021).

In February, it became a hot issue when a celebrity said “pao cai” for “kimchi” to her Chinese mother-in-law while filming. There was even a national petition calling for the celebrity to drop out of the show.

In March, CJ marked kimchi as “pao cai (泡菜)” (JoongAng Ilbo, March 15, 2021) on the package of Bibigo dumplings produced in China and sold locally, and it was criticized for agreeing to China’s “kimchi project.”

Then, in June, a community post was widely reported, taking issue with the foreign language marking of spam egg kimchi fried rice (riceballs) sold by convenience store GS25. Kimchi fried rice is written in Chinese as “pao cai chao pan (泡菜炒饭).” As the controversy grew, a GS25 official said, “For the convenience of foreigners visiting Korea, we are listing English, Japanese, and Chinese product names on product labels. We will collect opinions from customers and improve the labeling of foreign language product names as soon as possible” (Aju Business Daily, June 21, 2021). The following day, GS25 stopped ordering and selling the product, and 7-Eleven, which was not initially mentioned, took the same action. The Japanese mark of this product was “kimuchichahang (キムチチャーハン),” but I wonder why “kimuchi” was not a problem.

Table 4. News release – controversy over the name of kimchi / pao cai

How should we express kimchi in Chinese? Currently, it is a Chinese expression meaning “cabbage kimchi” or “kimchi,” which correspond to the Chinese words labaicai (辣白菜) and han xi pao cai (韓式泡菜), respectively. There was once a controversy about kimchi being called “kimuchi” in Japanese. Now, most Koreans seem to know that kimchi can only be expressed as “kimuchi” because of the limitations of Japanese.

Until now, there has been no way to express kimchi in Chinese with the Korean pronunciation and meaning. There was a project to make and transfer the Chinese expression of kimchi in Korea, but the results were not good. Involvement in other countries’ languages would be condemned as a violation of sovereignty or interference in domestic affairs. hould the “controversy over the name of kimchi-pao cai” continue, I am worried that someday, Chinese people will argue about Korea, which describes the “Chinese cabbage” as “Baechu.”