"Culinary Class Wars" chef Anh Sung-jae, who appears on the show, has been swept up in an unexpected nationality rumor.
Recently, on a certain online community, an unfounded claim spread that "Culinary Class Wars" chef Anh Sung-jae is of Chinese diaspora origin.
Some netizens cited Anh Sung-jae's awkward manner of speaking, the hanja for his name being characters often used by Chinese diaspora, the different English spelling of the surname 'An', and the fact that Anh Sung-jae's parents operated a Chinese restaurant in the United States as reasons. There were also absurd claims about the name of the restaurant Anh Sung-jae runs, Mosu, saying it was meant to praise Mao Zedong or was taken from a Chinese classical story.
Many posts containing such claims poured out within the community, creating a mood that treated Anh Sung-jae as a proven fact of Chinese diaspora origin. They also criticized and demeaned Anh Sung-jae as the Chinese Communist Party. This stems from the recently spreading "anti-China sentiment," and they raise "Chinese diaspora suspicions" as a tool to tear down famous entertainers, generating indiscriminate malicious comments. In fact, not only Anh Sung-jae but popular idols and YouTubers have suffered from such suspicions.
However, many netizens who saw this reacted that it was absurd. Chef Anh Sung-jae emigrated to the United States as an elementary school student and grew up in the state of California as a Korean American; after becoming an adult he enlisted in the U.S. military and was deployed to the Iraq War. They say it is incomprehensible to frame him as the "Chinese Communist Party."
The evidence presented was also woefully insufficient to support the claims, leading to reactions calling them groundless assertions. Above all, indiscriminately labeling celebrities as "Chinese diaspora" and advancing conspiracy theories was criticized as demeaning behavior that discriminates against actual members of the Chinese diaspora.
Amid these conspiracy theories, the "Culinary Class Wars" side warned of legal action against malicious defamation aimed at the participating chefs. On the 6th, the "Culinary Class Wars" production team said on its official YouTube channel, "As the program has aired recently, cases have occurred targeting specific participating chefs with personal attacks, malicious comments, and even sending defaming messages to personal SNS accounts. Such acts not only seriously damage the reputations of chefs who have devoted their lives to cooking, but also leave deep, difficult-to-heal wounds on non-celebrity participants."
They added, "In response to malicious defamation and reputational damage, the production team is continuously collecting evidence regarding personality-abusive posts or SNS messages about specific chefs. We make it clear that confirmed authors of malicious posts/messages will face strong legal action without leniency," and emphasized, "We earnestly ask that indiscriminate criticism and personal attacks beyond healthy criticism be refrained from." Although specific cases were not mentioned, because the notice was posted immediately after the malicious rumors about Anh Sung-jae spread, it appears the announcement took that controversy into account.
Meanwhile, chef Anh Sung-jae is known as Korea's only Michelin three-star chef. He became known to the public by serving as a judge alongside Paik Jong-won on the Netflix variety show Culinary Class Wars, which first aired in 2024, and he is currently appearing as a judge on season 2 now streaming. The "Culinary Class Wars" series is a fierce culinary class war between hidden master "Black Spoon" chefs who honed their skills in the field without experience at large restaurants or famous establishments, and Korea's top star chefs, the "White Spoon," who seek to protect that. Season 2 premiered on Netflix on Dec. 16, and new episodes are uploaded every Tuesday.
[photo] OSEN DB, Netflix
[OSEN]