

Forget the ADIZ, South Korea just designated China a KIZ (Kimchi Identification Zone)! They decreed that Kimchi shouldn’t be called pàocài 泡菜 (“pickled vegetables”) in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and want it to have its own name to differentiate it from other pickled vegetables, HaoHao report reports:

For kimchi, the Koreans have decided that the new Chinese name is going to be xīnqí 辛奇. The Chinese are not accustomed to this and some have suggested that it doesn’t make sense, since xīn 辛 is usually construed as meaning “bitter; suffering; laborious” and qí 奇 means “strange; odd; queer; rare.”

Upon reflection, however, xīnqí 辛奇 may not be such a bad choice after all, since xīn 辛 is often used to describe the spicy/sour flavor of foods like kimchi and may even be seen on packages for Korean instant noodles. Moreover, qí 奇 may be thought of not merely as “strange; odd,” but also “wonderful; marvelous; mysterious.”

And while you’d expect the China to tell them to go shove it, they have in the past changed certain terms to honor Korean demands:

One of the biggest victories was getting the Chinese to accept Shǒu’ěr 首爾 as the Chinese way to refer to Seoul, instead of Hànchéng 漢城 (“Han City”). Naturally, calling their capital “Han City” rankled, since “Han” is the name of the main Chinese ethnic group. In contrast, Shǒu’ěr 首爾 both sounds like “Seoul” and has a felicitously appropriate meaning (viz., “head” [shǒudū 首都 means “capital”]) + “thus; so”).

It appears, however, that the Chinese “term for ADIZ” won’t change despite South Korean efforts.



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