PETALING JAYA, June 4 — South Korean dancer Babi has had enough with Malaysians who turned her into a target of mockery because of her stage name.
Spelt the same as the Malay word meaning “pig,” Malaysians began flooding the comments section on her Instagram with jokes calling her “the prettiest pig in the world.”
Some even went as far as asking her to change her stage name because “it’s like a curse word (in Malaysia).”
Babi, whose real first name is So-young, then posted an angry statement and declared that she no longer had any interest in Malaysia or its language because of the rudeness shown by commenters.
“Why are you doing this to me? Just because my name is your laughing stock? Are you having fun with this?
“I am not interested in your language, so it doesn’t matter what my name means in your language.
“And I didn’t know your country, but I don’t want to know it anymore,” she wrote.
Babi also warned that those who continued to ridicule her will be reported and blocked from her account.
Many Malaysian K-pop fans expressed embarrassment over their fellow countrymen harassing a public figure just because her name resembled a curse word in their language.
“These ignorant people have no idea that the word ‘babi’ doesn’t only exist in the Malay language,” wrote one user on Twitter.
Another Twitter user slammed Malaysians for smearing their country’s image by imposing the meaning of their language onto a foreigner’s name.
