As BTS member J-Hope enlisted in the military, his devoted fan base, ARMY, is garnering close attention to his service. One fan, in particular, created a Twitter account called “HobisFoodtray,” where they share the meals J-Hope eats during military service (read more about this here).
To obtain the menu information, the fan refers to the 36th Division barracks’ standard diet published on the public data portal of the Ministry of National Defense and uploads several food photos to showcase the meal.
Recently, the fan shared J-Hope’s dinner, consisting of wheat rice, Sausage Jjigae, stir-fried pork small intestine & sundae, stir-fried fish cake with red pepper, white kimchi, and Instant Black Bean Ramen. They also took the initiative to translate the menu into English for international fans’ convenience, which received over 42,000 views within five hours of being uploaded.
Although numerous fans showed their support and sent well wishes, some former Korean soldiers responded negatively to the post, arguing that the images did not accurately depict the actual meals served in the military. They criticized the portrayal, saying, “It’s frustrating to see photoshopped images of high-quality food on Twitter when, in reality, the military serves low-quality meals,” “I’d like to serve the person promoting these photos the military food I used to eat,” and “They clearly haven’t experienced real military food; if they had, they wouldn’t be able to create such misleading images.”
A few individuals even suggested sharing more authentic images of military meals to raise international awareness and potentially improve meal quality for Korean soldiers. In response to the criticism, the fan who posted the pictures hoped there would be no misunderstandings.
On April 18, J-Hope enlisted at the 36th Division Recruit Training Center in Gangwon-do, where he is currently undergoing basic military training. After completing five weeks of training, he is set to be deployed to his designated unit by the end of the month.
