Are we really all surprised? A superstar in her own right in K-Pop, and a major missed opportunity for Australia. Yes Rosé, from Blackpink who sings the viral song “APT” with Bruno Mars is a household name and very huuuggee globally – and yet Australia failed her.
The 27-year-old singer was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia in the Melbourne suburb of Bulleen where she went to school at Canterbury Girls Secondary College. In a recent interview with Nova 100s Jase & Lauren back in early December 2024, Rosé reminisced about her childhood and memories growing up in Australia;
“I would love to go. I haven’t been back for a few years. I really do miss it,”
“Every time I go back, I do the whole nostalgic thing… I drive past my school, I go sometimes say hi to my favourite school teachers…. Like, I actually do all these things, like wow, I’m getting old because, I always say I want to drive past my old house in Bulleen, and we drive past and I’m always like, oh, my god, I remember my old dog!”
Isn’t it funny, that despite being a global superstar, mingling and collaborating with legends, her Australian side and growing up is hardly a mention in the media. As we know if you are white, like Kylie Minogue and Keith Urban etc, Australian media will follow you like a hawk, but if you are Asian and come from other communities pf colour, it is hard to find yourself at the centre of Australian media.
Other examples of names we hardly hear about in the Aussie media is Sydney siders Felix and Bang Chan from Stray Kids, Melbournian Hanni Pham from the girl group NewJeans and Kimberley Chen whose collaboration with Malaysian rapper and activist Namewee focuses on mocking Chinese patriotism and nationalism hails from Melbourne.
Do we hear about them in Australian media? Yes, you do at times, but it’s not something that is plastered, because they and we are seen as Asians when we excel overseas as opposed to be seen as an Aussie.
Journalist Wing Kuang pondered this question in a piece she wrote for The Guardian.
“The growing trend of Australian artists making it big in Asia doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise, given that the Asian Australian community constitutes 17.4% of the country’s total population. But would 27-year-old Rosé – who moved to Seoul at 15, after her successful audition for one of South Korea’s top entertainment companies – still have achieved the kind of global career she enjoys now if she had stayed in Australia?
In my opinion, the answer would be a fat NO. According to a report commissioned by Creative Australia, the demographic of musicians in Australia is falling behind the rapid growth of cultural diversity in Australia.
Considering the growing population of Asians in Australia, it still falls completely short of representation and visibility in Australia. If you are not white and become successful overseas, you are considered an outsider and no longer Australian and that is sad. In addition for the lucky few who have made it in Australia who Asian background, DO NOT have any intentions to set up any mentoring or succession planning for the next generation of Asian Australian artists, because this is all made by design by a system which makes those of us who are non-white fight for crumbs.
In any case, we need to stand proud of our Asian Aussie artists who are doing so well overseas – hint hint – we have an upcoming project this year to start this (more to come later)….
Images via Facebook and Instagram.