"Mistranslation of Kimchi as Paocai in Chinese Textbooks for Middle and High Schools in Korea"

A Chinese textbook asked, "Let's learn the following names in Chinese," and then labeled kimchi as "Paochai." Photo by VANK

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Choyoung] The cyber diplomatic mission VANK announced on the 29th that kimchi was incorrectly translated as 'paocai (泡菜)' in Chinese textbooks for middle and high school students in South Korea.

VANK requested the domestic Chinese textbook publishers who made the mistranslation, including Darakwon, Sisa Books, Neungyule, Jihaksa, and Jeongjin, to change it to 'xinchi (辛奇)', the Chinese notation for kimchi established by the Ministry of Agriculture, or to correct it by keeping the proper noun kimchi as is.

According to VANK's investigation, Jihaksa translated 'Kimchi Ramyeon Hot Pot' as 'paocai ramen huoguo' in the introduction titled 'Menu of a Korean Restaurant', Jeongjin Publishing introduced kimchi as 'paocai' when explaining how to express Korean food in Chinese, and Sisa Books translated the example sentence 'Can you make kimchi?' as 'make paocai (做泡菜)'.

Neungyule Publishing presented the word 'paocai' and the word '辣 (spicy)' in expressions asking and answering about food taste, completing the sentence 'Kimchi is spicy.'

In particular, Sisa Books and Neungyule Publishing defined 'paocai' as kimchi not only in the main text but also in the vocabulary index.

A Chinese textbook labeled kimchi as "paocai" under an example sentence asking, "Can you make kimchi?" Photo by VANK

Paocai is a salted vegetable from Sichuan Province, China, that is either fermented immediately after salting or boiled and then fermented, similar to pickles.

China has established 'paocai' as an international standard and claims, "Since Korean kimchi also falls under paocai, we now have the global standard for the kimchi industry."

Park Gitae, head of VANK, said, "In a situation where China ignores Korea as the origin country of kimchi and distorts kimchi as Chinese food, mistranslating kimchi as 'paocai' in Chinese textbooks for middle and high school students can be exploited for China's international promotion, so it must be corrected."

Previously, VANK pointed out errors where kimchi was labeled as 'paocai' in materials such as the Korea Tourism Organization, EBS Chinese CSAT textbooks, and the National Institute of the Korean Language website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.