Over 30,000 Reviews: Illegal Viewing of "When Life Gives You Tangerines" Spreads in China

About 30,000 Reviews on Douban in China
Seo Kyungdeok: "Illegal Viewing Has Become Routine in China"
"No Sense of Shame... Truly Astonishing"

Seo Kyungdeok, a professor at Sungshin Women's University, criticized the illegal viewing of the Netflix series When Life Gives You Tangerines in China, stating, "Instead of making unreasonable claims that 'Korea has stolen Chinese culture,' they should first learn to respect content from other countries."

On March 20, Professor Seo wrote on his social media, "When Life Gives You Tangerines, which is attracting significant attention from viewers worldwide, is once again suffering from illegal viewing in China." He explained, "On the Chinese content review site Douban, a review page for When Life Gives You Tangerines has been created, and currently, around 30,000 reviews have been posted. As you know, Netflix is not officially available in China."

A review page of the Netflix series When Life Gives You Tangerines created on the Chinese content review site Douban. Photo by Seokyung Deok professor Facebook

He continued, "This happened when Squid Game Season 2 was released as well, and illegal viewing has become commonplace in China. What is even more shocking is that there seems to be no sense of shame about it." He added, "So far, in China, there have been major controversies as they have freely used the portraits of Hallyu stars appearing in K-content and created and sold counterfeit products for their own profit." He further stated, "Currently, When Life Gives You Tangerines is enjoying tremendous popularity both domestically and internationally, ranking in the TOP 10 in a total of 41 countries, including Korea, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Turkey, the Philippines, and Vietnam." He emphasized, "Instead of making baseless claims that 'Korea has stolen Chinese culture,' Chinese netizens should first develop the mindset to respect content from other countries."

Meanwhile, When Life Gives You Tangerines is a work depicting the story of a family of Jeju haenyeo (female divers) in the 1960s, following the Korean War. The title When Life Gives You Tangerines is a Jeju dialect expression meaning "You worked really hard." Director Kim Wonsik introduced the series at a production presentation as "both a tribute to the grandparents' and parents' generations and a song of encouragement for the children's generation." According to the OTT ranking site FlixPatrol, When Life Gives You Tangerines recorded 3.6 million views (the number of viewing hours divided by the running time) within three days of its release, ranking fourth in the global non-English series category. It also ranked first in the Netflix TV show category in 10 countries, including Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and sixth in the global TV show category.

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