15 Feb 2017

Hong Kong Popstar Sparks Parenting Debate

A 2015 interview in which Cantopop star Miriam Yeung says she discourages her son from being ’sissy’ has recently gone viral.

Cantopop ‘diva’ Miriam Yeung has apologised after a 2015 clip of her saying she scolds her son for playing with dolls and kitchen toys has sparked another round of LGBT debate in Hong Kong was widely shared online.

The clip shows Yeung saying “whenever he [her son] expresses his liking of Elsa, I scold him,” and “won’t such play turn him into a sissy?”

“I am worried that he will start liking the color pink,” she said.

The video drew ire from a number of internet users including entertainment channel King Jer who wrote, according to Global Voices, that “such stereotypes are so outdated … difficult to imagine that Miriam Yeung has so many LGBT friends and fans … yet she still carries such idea.”

LGBT group Action Q said “if a liking of Elsa means a tendency to become a girl, then Miriam Yeung is insulting thousands who like Elsa.”

The furore eventually led Yeung to offer an apology on Facebook and admit that she had now changed her views and that she would try to “understand [her son’s] world.”

“Sorry that this old interview have upset many. Being a parent is not easy, it is a life-long endeavour and I am still learning,” she wrote.