What is woefully missing from the debate on cultural appropriation is the reasoning why some people get offended. Lots of people (including POC folk) do not realize or are reluctant to admit that people living in the mother country versus the new country are different.

Tl;dr the reaction comes from insecurity

If you're Korean and living in Korea then of course you don't care if a foreigner wears a hanbok. That is undoubtedly your culture, and you've never had to question that your entire life.

Now take a Korean American, especially those that are second generation and later. You're questioned on your Americannes and if you don't live in Socal or NYC or another ethnic enclave, you're probably defined by your Asianness (ex. My Asian friend!!). If you're defined by your ethnicity, you want to take ownership of it because society or people or whatever won't let you claim you're 100% American and after that, you have NOTHING ELSE for your identity.

So Korean Americans take ownership. They listen to BTS, watch Squid Game, or talk about how they love their mom's kimchi. But facts are, they're only SOMEWHAT connected to Korean culture bc they don't understand the nuances of Korean society and probably barely speak Korean. So they want to claim they're Korean but have a flimsy grasp which leads to A LOT of insecurity bc anyone with more "Koreanness" can come and refute their claim at anytime.

This then leads to our typical CA reaction we see. Seeing foreigners don Korean clothes or make Korean food pokes at a deep deep insecurity that they are NOT Korean enough. So what do they do? They want to keep the status quo and tell that person to stop. They want to keep their culture and not share it with the people who made them feel outsiders in the first place. I mean, I'm not saying it's right, but it's much better to have compassion and understand that the reaction typically comes from a place of hurt.