[News Space=Reporter seungwon lee] Famous Japanese rice bowl chains such as Yoshinoya and Matsuya are causing controversy by translating the Korean word 'kimchi' into the Chinese word 'paocai' (泡菜).
You can see this mistranslation when you change the language on the kiosk menu where customers place orders to Chinese.
Seo Kyung-deok, a professor at Sungshin Women's University, said, "I found out about it after many netizens reported it to me, and I immediately sent a protest email because the chain has stores all over the world, not just in Japan."
In the protest email, Professor Seo said, "Kimchi in Korea and paocai in China are clearly different foods," and "Please correct the incorrect notation as soon as possible so that users around the world do not get confused."
To help you understand quickly, we have even attached a video that clearly explains the differences between kimchi and pao cai.
In 2021, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism partially revised the 'Guidelines for Foreign Language Translation and Notation of Public Terms' and specified the correct Chinese spelling for kimchi as 'sinchi' (辛奇).
Professor Seo Kyung-deok pointed out that "mistranslations of kimchi as 'paocai' all over the world only serve as an excuse for China's 'kimchi process'," and that "correcting these errors will become the foundation for the true 'globalization of Korean food.'"
