Myanmar’s K Pop group, Project K, faced a protest from some public members when they arrived back at Yangon International Airport after participating in Asia Song Festival 2020.
Their performance at the festival has drawn widespread condemnation for stepping on images of the Shwedagon Pagoda.
On October 10, Project K group uploaded the video of their performance at the Asia Song Festival 2020 on their Facebook page, in which it showed that the image of the Shwedagon Pagoda was projected on the floor of the stage.
Since then the group has been criticized by social media users for their performance by stepping on the pagoda images. When they arrived back, they also met with a protest at the airport.
“Their act is wrong. Talking about it (in context of our respect for religion), we don’t step on the shadows of even nuns, let alone monks. We stand still when we meet them face to face. We have been taught by our parents to behave so. Buddhism has been prescribed in our constitution. It is filled with full characteristics. We must respect that. Likewise, we must respect other religions,” said a man close to the protestors.
“We try to avoid stepping on the images of monks. This is our hereditary custom. Ours is a country of Buddhism,” he added.
Regarding the incident, Project K issued an apology on their Facebook Page by claiming that they only found out they were performing on the image of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda at the Asia Song Festival 2020.
"There was no LED light during the first rehearsal. It was there for the second rehearsal. We knew that there was an LED being shown below us but while we were dancing, we did not know what image it even was," said the apology.
It further goes on to say that all of them are Buddhists and they would have surely stopped it if they had known earlier. They only found out after the event and that they were very sorry for their mistake even though they tried their best.
They expressed their sincere apologies, on their Facebook Page.
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, while on her trip to South Korea in November 2019 for the ASEAN-Korea Summit and Mekong-Korea Summit, had requested President Moon Jae-In to help train the Project K group.
