ENHYPEN Raises Brows for Doing THIS on Chinese New Year: 'We must boycott it...'

Following the celebration of the Lunar New Year, ENHYPEN didn't sit well with Chinese fans after they did THIS and called for a boycott.

C-Fans Complain Over ENHYPEN Calling Chinese New Year as 'Seollal'

On February 9, the boy group took to their official social media platforms, such as YouTube, to greet their fans, ENGENEs, ahead of the Lunar New Year. Wearing their hanboks, Korea's traditional clothing, the seven members gave their formal greetings.

While Korean fans showed their appreciation for the warm greetings, one particular detail caused a ruckus among Chinese netters when the boy group used the term "Seollal" (Korean New Year) instead of "Chinese New Year."

The one-minute and 10-second video clip was accompanied by a number of malicious comments from some Internet users, who are presumed to be Chinese.

In the post, there were many people asking why it was marked as "Korean New Year" and said that it should be boycotted.

They made such claims as:

• "Why does Korea celebrate Chinese New Year?"
• "Korea tries to steal Chinese New Year again."
• "Why did you bother to mark it as 'Korean New Year' and not 'Chinese New Year'?"
• "We should do Boycott it."

A Chinese netizen also pointed out:

"Write 'Chinese New Year' rather than 'Lunar New Year."

Posts with the hashtag “Korea is stealing the Chinese New Year” poured in on the Chinese social networking site, Weibo, and comments like “Let’s spread the word about the Chinese New Year” followed.

Earlier, not only ENHYPEN met the anger of Chinese netizens but also SNSD Seohyun and IVE Jang Wonyoung who greeted the Lunar New Year wearing their hanboks.

At the time, Chinese netizens also made unreasonable claims that "Hanbok," Korea's traditional costume, originated from "Hanfu," China's traditional costume.

ENGENEs Defend ENHYPEN

However, a professor from Sungshin's Women's University defended them by emphasizing the difference between Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year, wherein the latter was also celebrated by other countries around the world including South Korea.

Since ENHYPEN is mostly comprised of Korean members and is actively promoting in Korea, it is right for them to celebrate and use the term, "Seollal," as well as to wear Hanbok.

Fans emphasized that this shouldn't be a big deal and just let them be, as whatever they call it, idols will always receive backlash for it.

Netizens are using NewJeans Danielle's case as an example, where she received massive hate from Koreans for using the term, "Chinese New Year" instead of Seollal.

Fans talked about this on the X platform and left tweets such as:

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Written by Eunice Dawson.