I’m very surprised that the first non-Thai mainstream southeast Asian idol will be Vietnamese

Now admittedly calling new jeans and Hanni mainstream when they debuted literally yesterday might be jumping the gun, but they’ll probably get into the mainstream soon enough. Also no offense to idols like Dita, HanniHanbin, or Chanty but I would not consider them mainstream.

I remember reading this post and I thought to myself well if we ever do have one which ethnicity will they be?

I always thought the first non-Thai mainstream southeast asian model would be Indonesian or Philippino due to their sheer size and how early and hard the hallyu wave hit in those countries. Maybe Malaysia because while they don’t have the population of Indonesia or the Philippines their population is on average, wealthier.

I never imagined it would be a Vietnamese idol to breakthrough first. The hallyu wave has hit Vietnam, but from my knowledge Vietnam caught the wave later than other southeast Asian countries and not nearly as hard. I know other factors such as Hanni growing up in Australia probably made a difference, but I’m still surprised that it’s going to be a Vietnamese idol that’s going to be the first. You would think we would have a mainstream Philipino, Indonesian, or Malaysian idol by now considering the connections companies have already made in those places.

Quote from OP

Now admittedly calling new jeans and Hanni mainstream when they debuted literally yesterday might be jumping the gun, but they’ll probably get into the mainstream soon enough. Also no offense to idols like Dita, HanniHanbin, or Chanty but I would not consider them mainstream.

I remember reading this post and I thought to myself well if we ever do have one which ethnicity will they be?

I always thought the first non-Thai mainstream southeast asian model would be Indonesian or Philippino due to their sheer size and how early and hard the hallyu wave hit in those countries. Maybe Malaysia because while they don’t have the population of Indonesia or the Philippines their population is on average, wealthier.

I never imagined it would be a Vietnamese idol to breakthrough first. The hallyu wave has hit Vietnam, but from my knowledge Vietnam caught the wave later than other southeast Asian countries and not nearly as hard. I know other factors such as Hanni growing up in Australia probably made a difference, but I’m still surprised that it’s going to be a Vietnamese idol that’s going to be the first. You would think we would have a mainstream Philipino, Indonesian, or Malaysian idol by now considering the connections companies have already made in those places.

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Are you Vietnamese ?

combination of hanni looking much better and the hype of adorngg

I thought one of them looked Viet. Not that surprising. A good amount of Vietnamese people can pass for Chinese or are indistinguishable from Southern Chinese, and there have been many Chinese idols already. K-Pop is about visuals. I like Dita btw.