Korean Boy Band Triggers Cyber War

Here at the Beijinger we’ve mostly refrained from commenting on the Shanghai Expo, figuring anyone who was interested could check out what our comrades on the spot down south were saying. But we couldn’t resist this Expo-related story – a Korean boy band triggering a war in cyberspace, demonstrating just how stupid so-called patriotism can get.

It all started when the Korean group Super Junior were scheduled to play at the Expo on May 30. Thousands of local fans turned up for what were meant to be 5,000 free tickets – only to find that most of the passes had already been given to South Korean tour groups.

The result was a stampede which required the intercession of the armed police. Many were injured, and some reports claimed one girl died. According to Baidu Wiki as translated by China Hush, “They started yelling and beating the armed police and volunteers who tried to maintain order. Some spitted [sic] at the armed police, one person even took off her clothes and accused the armed police of sexual harassment.”

All for this:

Then things got really ugly. According to Baidu Wiki, as translated by China Hush:

“Even though the news [of the Expo incident] was quickly blocked it still eventually leaked out and began to spread on the Internet. A forum post titled ‘Korean fans, don’t think no one cares about volunteers and armed police don’t have fans of their own, how dare you to spit, really want to spill the kimchi in your brain’ appeared on Tianya and triggered public uproar. On the same night Super Junior’s official website was brought down by the Chinese Internet users. Then SJ’s fans went to the Korean Pavilion Website to apologize, and apologizing on behalf of Chinese people. This really set off the patriotic Chinese netizents to organize the ‘69 Jihad.’”

And what was 69 Jihad? According to China Hush it was a coordinated attack of “spamming and condemning on well-known forums and websites of Korean celebrity stars and their fans at 7 pm on June 9, 2010.”

At the end of last week (June 11) The Wall Street Journal reported:

“As of Friday the quarrel was still going. Some Super Junior fans are calling for a counterattack. But others are calling for a truce. Han Han, the popular blogger and writer, wrote a post Friday discussing the cyberwar. ‘To be honest, I felt ashamed of both sides,’ he said.”

Sounds like Han Han has been the only sane voice in the whole sorry saga.