The post was just made, and it has already been seen by more than 100,000 people.
People often say that it is bittersweet for most singers to be foreign and an idol in South Korea. Aside from the stress of living far away from home at a young age, they sometimes don’t get paid the same as their Korean groupmates and have to deal with people saying they don’t look “Korean enough.”
A TikTok influencer went popular in South Korea a few months ago after saying that people who look like they are from East Asia are treated better than people who look like they are from Southeast Asia.
The TikToker used NewJeans member Hanni as an example, saying that she was more enthusiastically accepted in South Korea than BLACPINK‘s Lisa because Hanni looked “Korean-passing.”
But it looks like Hanni isn’t safe from this kind of criticism either, just because she looks like someone of her race.
A recent online post in South Korea has gone popular because it says that the singer looks “too Southeast Asian.”
The OP (original poster) shared several pictures of Hanni with the caption, “Doesn’t NewJeans‘ Hanni look too much like a Southeast Asian?” “She was born in Vietnam, but she moved to South Korea to become a singer,” they said.
Within a day of being posted, the story had more than 100,000 views, most of which were from people defending Hanni.
Some people said that she is good at her job no matter what race she is, but others called out OP for trying to say that looking Southeast Asian is a bad thing.
“Is it a problem that someone from Southeast Asia looks like someone from Southeast Asia?”
“Out of the five NewJeans members, she is my favorite.”
“It’s fine as long as she’s not Chinese.”
“What did the designer for Gucci do? Why do you hate her so much that you would do something like that to a cute girl? Even my mom doesn’t wear like her.”
“But Hanni is the cutest…(a woman in her 30s who walked by)”
“What’s wrong with someone from Southeast Asia looking like someone else from that area?”
“What’s so bad about being from Southeast Asia…? She comes from Southeast Asia because she comes from Southeast Asia. Are you Southeast Asian if you’re short and have double eyelids? Lmao. There are also a lot of them in Korea. Do you think that Koreans are born with fair skin? It doesn’t matter if you have thin eyes, a face like someone from Mongolia, or a tan like someone from Northeast Asia. Southeast Asia is also full of pretty people. If they are also Chinese, the only difference is that they are natives of a different country. They look the same as people from Northeast Asia.”
“She can sing, dance, and look good on stage. She is cute and pretty. What’s the matter…? She is my favorite of all the 4th generation female heroes.
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