{"id":53833,"date":"2026-06-15T20:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/53833\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T20:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:55:10","slug":"south-koreas-starbucks-to-close-for-staff-history-lesson-on-tank-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/53833\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea\u2019s Starbucks to close for staff history lesson on ‘Tank day’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starbucks<\/a> in South Korea<\/a> will close its storefronts for a half-day next week so employees can attend a history<\/a> lesson as the coffee chain faces widespread criticism over a \u201cTank Day\u201d promotion.<\/p>\n

The campaign advertising<\/a> Starbucks\u2019s new \u201cTank\u201d coffee thermos for bigger coffees was launched on the 46-year anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, a series of pro-democracy protests against former dictator Chun Doo-hwan in which at least 165 people were killed, but other sources put the death toll in the thousands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The coffee chain fired its chief executive, Son Jeong-hyun, the same day the promotion launched. Son apologized for the campaign and tumbler name choice before his dismissal and pledged company-wide training on historical awareness and ethics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starbucks locations across South Korea will be closed at 3 p.m. local time for three hours on June 24 for staff training on the history of the Gwangju Uprising, which began on May 18, 1980, and lasted 10 days. The closure marks Starbucks Korea\u2019s first nationwide early closure since 1999.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shinsegae Group, the company that owns the Starbucks licensing agreement in South Korea, issued an apology the following day, May 19, and said Chairman Chung Yong-jin<\/a> will participate in the companywide training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anger over the company\u2019s campaign spread quickly. Protesters gathered outside of locations across the country and smashed the mugs and tumblers released as part of the \u201cTank Day\u201d promotion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Protesters not only took issue with the mug\u2019s militaristic name and the timing of its release but also the slogan Starbucks used, \u201cThwack on the desk.\u201d The same onomatopoeia was used by police after the 1987 death of student activist Park Jong-chul when authorities claimed Park died due to an officer who had used his fist to \u201chit the desk with a thwack.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

STARMER ANNOUNCES SOCIAL MEDIA BAN FOR UK CHILDREN UNDER 16<\/a><\/p>\n

Shinsegae Group said in a statement that the marketing department had chosen the \u201cthwack on the desk\u201d slogan after using an artificial intelligence tool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The incident also caught the attention of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who called the campaign \u201cinhumane and disgraceful\u201d on social media during the initial backlash last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starbucks in South Korea will close its storefronts for a half-day next week so employees can attend a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1278,2588,30730,3151,171,1277,16240,33,15504],"class_list":["post-53833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-advertising","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-criticism","tag-history","tag-korean","tag-marketing","tag-protests","tag-south-korea","tag-starbucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}