KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3 – It takes a highly dedicated instructor not to be distracted by anything during a training session, even if a convoy of armoured military vehicles sweep right behind her.
A young aerobics instructor from Myanmar has become a global sensation for accidentally capturing the country’s military coup on Monday in a dance video that has now gone viral.
In a short dance workout clip, Khing Hnin Wai seems oblivious as a convoy of military vehicles drove by the Royal Lotus roundabout on the main road leading to the parliament complex in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw.
A viral video of a woman doing aerobics class to the tune of Indonesian hit song “Ampun Bang Jago” in Myanmar, apparently without realizing a military convoy arriving at parliament behind her and a military coup happening.
— Yenni Kwok (@yennikwok) February 2, 2021
ht @Vinncent pic.twitter.com/mK4UYUp0Gv
Despite the dramatic scene happening right in the background, Khing continues pumping her arms to an electronic beat of Ampun Bang Jago, a song by Indonesian artistes Tian Storm and Ever Slkr, made popular by TikTok.
Khing’s video soon went viral across social media platforms, garnering millions of views since Monday.
One tweet containing the video has been viewed over 19 million times.
Despite making positive headlines worldwide, some social media users criticised Khing for ridiculing the country’s current situation.
She, however, took to Facebook yesterday to defend herself by saying she was unaware of the coup at the time of filming and she had no intention to offend anyone.
“I was recording the video for an aerobic dance competition before I heard the news [about the coup] in the morning.
“I wasn’t dancing to mock or ridicule any organisations or to be silly. I was dancing for a dance competition,” she wrote.
Khing added that she often used the same spot to film her workout tutorials over the past 11 months.
The military seized control of the country in the early hours of Monday after leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior figures from the ruling National League for Democracy party were detained.
The intervention came after weeks of escalating tensions between the military, which ruled the country for nearly five decades, and the civilian government over allegations of fraud in November’s elections.
