Earlier this week on August 23, NewJeans member Hanni shared some of her memories from a trip to Japan with her fellow group members, writing, "our short trip to sushi land".

Soon afterward, Hanni's use of the expression "sushi land" garnered the attention of many Japanese netizens. 

A Japanese YouTuber eventually began a poll, asking netizens what they thought of Hanni calling Japan "sushi land". 

As shown below, 82% of voters felt that the phrase was "not offensive", while 18% found the phrase "offensive". 

Notably, some reactions from Japanese netizens included, "If you call India 'curry land', is that offensive? No, I don't think so. Japan is known for sushi, so it is not a concern that it is called 'sushi land'." 

"It's not offensive, but when I saw that there were no actual photos of sushi in that collage, I did think, 'What was her intention?'. Since Koreans often use terms like 'sushi girl'." 

(Note: "sushi girl" is a derogatory slang term used on Korean online communities to refer to Japanese women who are conservative and submissive.)

In fact, in response to the above issue, many Korean netizens also struck up a debate about how they would feel if a foreigner referred to Korea as "kimchi land". Some felt that the phrase was not problematic at all since kimchi is a representative food of Korea, while others pointed to the general "appropriateness" of describing a country using a single food.