Jeon Jihee "One's Own Happiness Is Most Important"
Defeats Poland in Women's Table Tennis Round of 16... Faces Germany in Quarterfinals
On the 2nd, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in Japan, the first singles match of the women's table tennis team round of 16 against Poland took place. Jeon Ji-hee is executing a forehand attack against Li Chen. [Photo by Yonhap News]
[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] Jeon Ji-hee (29, POSCO Energy), a female table tennis Olympic national representative who naturalized from China to Korea, is gaining attention for her composed response to Chinese netizens who made disparaging remarks about her appearance.
On the 28th of last month, Jeon Ji-hee competed in the women's singles quarterfinals at the '2020 Tokyo Olympics' and was defeated by world No. 2 Ito Mima (Japan).
Immediately after the match, on the Chinese social networking service (SNS) Weibo, posts mentioning Jeon Ji-hee's Chinese name 'Tian Zixi' appeared, asking, "Did she have plastic surgery?" Subsequently, Chinese netizens posted past photos of Jeon Ji-hee, mocking her appearance.
Following this, 'Tian Zixi plastic surgery' quickly rose to the top of Weibo search rankings and even reached the number one search term.
Despite the rude mockery from Chinese netizens, on the 30th of last month, Jeon Ji-hee posted on her Weibo account, "Many people left comments, making it a trending search term," and added, "I just saw it now as I was preparing for the team event match in the afternoon."
Jeon Ji-hee also personally uploaded past and present photos shared by netizens.
In response to a netizen asking about the cost of plastic surgery, she replied, "I had double eyelid surgery for 770,000 Korean won," and to the absurd question, "Did you change your entire face instead of your nationality?" she answered, "I lost."
Additionally, Jeon Ji-hee shared a selfie and expressed her belief, saying, "Being happy with yourself is the most important."
Meanwhile, the Korean women's table tennis team advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating Poland in the team event held on the 2nd.
The Korean women's table tennis team, consisting of Jeon Ji-hee (POSCO Energy), Choi Hyo-joo (Samsung Life Insurance), and Shin Yu-bin (Korean Air), defeated Poland (Natalia Partyka, Natalia Bajor, Li Chen) 3-0 (3-2, 3-0, 3-2) on the 2nd.
Ranked 4th in the world, the Korean women's table tennis team is scheduled to compete against Germany at 10 a.m. on the 3rd for a spot in the semifinals.
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