Dubai: South Korean singer Lee Sun-mi, also known as Sunmi, is facing social media backlash after Indian tweeps pointed out that she was mocking Indian culture and dance gestures, in a TikTok video this week. After the strong reaction, Sunmi took to Twitter to issue an apology.
The singer was seen dancing with the two other women in the viral TikTok video. And Twitter users said their hand gestures and head movements seem to be mocking an Indian dance form.
Tweep @sairkive posted: “Hey Sunmi, this sound on TikTok is used in an offending manner towards Indians. Where the hand gestures and head bobs are a mockery of Indian classical dances. Please delete this! Thank you.”
Indians were not the only ones to react, @TheGirl62 tweeted: “I’m not even Indian but this obviously looked very wrong and offensive. Who sees this and does not get offended by how they’re mocking the dance?”
Indians tweeps who dismissed the video, as not being offensive were also schooled for normalising such attitude.
Tweep @palettehyyh posted: “Indians in the comments saying ‘it’s okay’ - it’s not. When you live outside India, people use these songs to mock Indian culture, and Indian people. We get degraded into curry eaters and funny hand movements. Please understand that even if it was a joke, there was no reason.”
However, Sunmi later apologised to her fans. She took to Twitter and wrote, “There is no reason or intention for me to mock the culture of other countries. It’s because of my ignorance of the culture.”
“I apologise for being ignorant about the culture of other countries. And I’d like to say that I am truly sorry to those who have been hurt by my ignorance,” she added.
