Festival promoting South Korea’s ceramic culture faces fury over Chinese-made prizes

The controversy emerged after a social media user said on Tuesday that a miniature moon jar received through a festival promotional event carried a “Made in China” sticker.

“I honestly doubted my eyes when I opened the package,” the winner said on social media, posting photographs of the prize. “This was an event held under the name of the Yeoju Ceramic Festival, but what I received was a cheap, low-quality product with a ‘Made in China’ sticker on it, which is worse than something you’d buy at Daiso. Is this right?”

The annual festival, held in Yeoju, Gyeonggi province, is one of South Korea’s best-known ceramic events and aims to promote local artisans and the region’s pottery industry.

As part of a social media campaign held from May 1 to May 10, visitors who posted photos from the festival on their personal social media accounts were entered into a drawing. Twenty winners were selected to receive miniature moon jars, a traditional ceramic form widely associated with Korean pottery.

As criticism mounted, the Yeoju Sejong Cultural Tourism Foundation, which organises the festival, issued a public apology.

“The distribution of low-cost Chinese-made products as prizes under the name of a festival intended to promote Yeoju’s ceramic culture and support local ceramic artists was highly inappropriate,” foundation chairman Lee Soon-yeol said in a statement on Wednesday.