Fickle pickle

Is your kimchi Chinese or Korean?

For Koreans, the question is a bit insulting as this delicacy of fermented napa cabbage or radish originated in their country. Kimchi

dates back to the country’s Three Kingdoms period, which started in 37 BC.

The kimchi, however, is getting a little identity crisis with the emergence of a variant from China, the pickled vegetable called pao cai, which also has cabbage as its main ingredient.

It appears that pao cai is posing as kimchi, following a Chinese newspaper report that claimed China is the leader in the kimchi industry. The statement from Beijing came after the country recently won a certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for pao cai.

When Korean netizens learned of the report, they reacted angrily on social media. Soon, their Chinese counterparts joined the fray in defense of pao cai.

It was not the first time that another country got into a kimchi dispute with South Korea, a staunch defender of K culture. In 1996, it protested against Japan’s kimuchi,

a copycat that is not fermented.

Through Korean lobbying, kimchi eventually prevailed as it got an official definition from the international food standards organization Codex Alimentarius, which is under the World Health Organization.

After Japan, it was China’s turn to claim kimchi as its own by ignoring the Codex’s definition and defining the Korean specialty as a derivative of the pao cai. China also banned kimchi exports from South Korea in 2012.

With pao cai now trying to be kimchi, Korean netizens accused China of stealing their culture.

The Chinese fired back from their Twitter Weibo. They claimed that kimchi is a traditional Chinese dish because the Koreans import it from China.

Other Chinese netizens said Sichuan’s “kimchi” met international standards, making kimchi not Korean.

South Korea’s agriculture ministry retorted on Sunday that the ISO seal China won does not apply to kimchi.

The spicy and tangy food has not only sparked a bitter exchange between Chinese and Korean netizens on social media. Like its taste, kimchi seems to be souring relations between China and South Korea.