Table tennis national team member Shin Yu-bin (20, Korean Air) was caught on camera eating bananas, rice balls, and energy gels throughout the Paris Olympics. As Shin Yu-bin’s Olympic mukbang became a hot topic, his popularity is growing by the day, and China, a table tennis powerhouse, is also responding enthusiastically.
Born in 2004, Shin Yu-bin, who was called a “table tennis prodigy” and received attention since she was young, is also receiving a lot of love from fellow players, commentators, reporters, and netizens during these Olympics, where she is nicknamed “Ppyak-i.”
In particular, the “grain mukbang” that Shin Yu-bin showed during the match became a hot topic. Shin Yu-bin’s “mukbang” relay began on the 30th of last month, when she ate rice balls and a flat peach right before the bronze medal match in the mixed doubles.
Shin Yu-bin also took a rice ball out of her lunch box and took a photo to prove it with her cell phone. It has been reported that the rice ball was made by Shin Yu-bin’s mother.
Shin Yu-bin then did a ‘banana mukbang’ during a timeout during the game, eating a banana with her eyes wide open.
Also, during the women’s table tennis singles quarterfinals on the 1st, she put an ice pack on her head and quickly squeezed and ate a tube-shaped energy gel to cool down while the game was delayed. In
China, where table tennis is the ‘national sport’, netizens also showed their fascination with Shin Yu-bin’s charm and mukbang. Chinese netizens gave Shin Yu-bin the nickname ‘Xiao Shen (小申)’. In the Chinese-speaking world, it is an act of showing friendliness to someone by taking one character from their name and adding ‘Xiao (小)’, ‘Da (大)’, or ‘A (阿)’ in front of it to create a two-character nickname. On Weibo, China’s representative SNS, the bronze medal match between Xin Yubin and Hayata once ranked first in real-time trending keywords. They are also visiting Xin Yubin’s personal Instagram account to leave comments of support. A post uploaded on June 29th was filled with comments such as, “I thought you were cute when I watched the match live,” “We Chinese people love you,” “You’re so cute and it’s nice to see you always smiling,” “Come visit China often in the future,” “It’s okay if you don’t win a bronze medal. I’ll look forward to the next competition,” “4th place in the Olympics is also a great achievement,” “I really like your innocent smile and bubbly appearance.” One netizen wrote, “It’s funny that the comments are full of Chinese,” and “Cuteness is justice.” Another netizen shared a method of dealing with Chen Meng (30, China), a two-time gold medalist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, saying, “The necklace that Chen Meng is wearing has a reflective effect, so it would be good to give feedback to the referee.” Here, even Japanese netizens joined in. Shin Yu-bin lost 2-4 (11-9 11-13 10-12 7-11 12-10 7-11) to Hayata Hina (24, Japan) in the bronze medal match for women’s table tennis singles on the 3rd. Although it was a regrettable moment, Shin Yu-bin smiled brightly and approached Hayata, hugging and congratulating her. After that, she walked around the court, making eye contact with the audience and greeting them, and the audience responded with applause for Shin Yu-bin. Shin Yu-bin said in the joint press area, “I’ve been watching Hayata for a long time. She worked really hard and played earnestly,” and “I wanted to acknowledge that. I congratulated her because I wanted to become a stronger player.” Regarding this, Shin Yu-bin’s personal Instagram account said, “After the match with Hayata Hina, I was touched by the way she smiled and hugged Hayata instead of just shaking her hand. Japanese netizens praised Yubin, saying, “I shed tears when I saw her secretly shedding tears on the bench out of regret.” “I hope she never loses that smile. I will cheer her on from Japan.” “I am Japanese, but I have become Yubin’s fan.” “You are a superstar in Japan too.” “It was really cool to see you fight until the end.” Japanese media outlets such as Daily Sports also reported, “At the moment of victory, Shin Yubin approached Hayata, who was sitting on the court shedding tears, and hugged her with a smile on her face.” “Even the genius table tennis girl from Korea must have been upset about missing a medal, but it was impressive to see her congratulate Hayata with a smile that didn’t stop even during the match.” 바카라게임