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 Shwe Dagon Pagoda was projected on the floor of the stage.
As Project K sung and danced while walking on the image of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the video drew sharp condemnation from Myanmar's social media users, particularly at the comments section of the original video.
"You will reap what you sow. By stepping on the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, it is a challenge to Buddhists. Your karma will be unfortunate," wrote a user.
Another wrote that "Even when Buddhists donate rations to monks, they take great care to not step all over their shadows. More care should be undertaken for the shadow of a pagoda that houses Buddha's relics. Now what we have here is not a shadow but a real image of it. Are you people not ashamed to not be offended by this? I don't want to say anymore because I will have to stoop and compete being rude."
"I support the effort and success achieved by you guys (Project K). But the fact that you stepped and danced all over the image of a pagoda that your own people worship should never have happened. Even if the Koreans didn't know, it was your duty to explain it to them. Now you guys chose to break the taboo because you prefer your own success. Don't give the flimsy excuse that due to the way light reflected because it is too obvious," said another user.
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 were no LED light during the first rehearsal. It was there for the second rehearsal. We knew that there were LED being shone 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.
The State Counselor 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.
