Rosé Chaeyoung Park: The Pop Pacific artist

Rosé of the supergroup BLACKPINK was talking about fashion in this quote. But this could also apply to her life and her music. Which nation can claim her? Roseanne Chaeyoung Park was born in New Zealand, reared in Australia, then relocated to Korea as a teenager to train to become a K-pop idol. She debuted as Rosé, a member of the multinational K-pop group BLACKPINK and later as a solo artist. Her many identities and origins indicate the Pop Pacific's transnational character.

Invisible minority in New Zealand and Australia

Born in New Zealand to Korean immigrant parents, Rosé moved to Melbourne, Australia, when she was seven years old along with her parents.  She represents the large-scale Asian immigrant movement fueled by long-term commercial immigration programs in both nations in recent decades. According to the 2023 census, 17.3% of people in New Zealand were classified as Asian, while according to the 2021 census, 17.4% of Australians identified as having Asian ancestry. Koreans were part of this large wave of Asian migration. About 100,000 Australians, or 0.4 percent of the country's total population, identified as having Korean ancestry. Many Koreans, like her parents, emigrated to Australia often to escape the fierce economic competition for jobs and high stress work environment. Their children, like Rosé, were raised in the culture of New Zealand and Australia.

In Australia, Rosé grew up in two different worlds as she noted in an interview. In a 2025 interview with The Cut, she explained how she led two lives, that of a minority, and that in the Korean community:

[T]here were two Asians in my grade: me and one other girl. I’d live a very normal life at school and then every weekend, I’d go to a Korean church and be the good Korean girl. I grew up hanging out with Korean friends every weekend. That was helpful for me when I later moved to Korea because I didn’t feel too uncomfortable getting along with Korean Korean people.

Being a shy girl, she found solace at home, listening to American music such as the musical Dreamgirls, and playing the piano and loudly singing on her own. Her musical influences ranged from John Mayer, Nas, and Mario whose “How Do I Breathe”(2007) she said she listened to 10,000 times.

She moved to Korea due to limited opportunities to break into the entertainment industry at home. Her April 2021 interview with Vogue Australia hints at her marginalization in an Australia where Asians are still invisible. She revealed that she was proud of how the K-pop community gave visibility to Korean culture. 

'This is so important to me. Because when I was living in Australia, K-pop was just a thing I knew about, because I was Korean,' she says. 'Hearing how much people know and love K-pop right now, it’s crazy! I want to go back to high school and experience that myself, too!' she says. 'I think I would feel a lot more accepted knowing that everybody knows my culture so well. So it is very, very important to me.'

Still, until the success of “Apt.”(2024), her worldwide hit collaboration with American superstar Bruno Mars,  Rosé’s accomplishments were little celebrated in Australia (although I suspect she was popular among Asian Australian fans since half of all Australian K-pop fans were Asian). Wing Kuang, writing in the Guardian, wrote of his disappointment that Asian Australian musicians were finding massive success overseas but received little acclaim or recognition back home. He asks if  Rosé “…still (would) have achieved the kind of global career she enjoys now if she had stayed in Australia?” 

Korean diaspora returned home

Rosé went to Korea as a teenager, hoping to make it in the music industry as a trainee for YG Entertainment. There, her background as an ethnic Korean became an asset, combined with her beautiful voice, model looks, charisma, and English fluency. Although an Australian, numerous reports refer to her as a Korean spreading K-pop abroad. In fact, she was listed as the first Asian female solo artist to debut in the US’ iTunes Top 10 with the song “APT”. 

Yet, although she grew up in a household strongly influenced by Korean culture, she was still a foreigner adjusting to a different culture in Korea. In a 2024 interview with NPR Rosé spoke of her childhood and moving to Korea:

We spoke Korean at home, and so Korean culture was always part of our family. And also every Sunday we would go to Korean church. So I thought I understood the culture very well. But I remember when I flew to Korea at 15, 16 years old, that's when I started to learn that I had so much to learn about the culture, and it was a bit of a struggle the first four years I would say.

Rose battled intense loneliness as a trainee in Korea, as she was, after all, a teenager in a foreign country. She told the New York Times, “I didn’t understand the lonely part—the isolation I’d go through. It was traumatizing, a bit shocking. But I survived it,” 

She was being trained for a wider international market. One of the main characteristics of K-pop is its international character, which includes performers from a wide variety of nations. K-pop is better seen as “K-culture,” a heavily Americanized version of Korean culture that reflects historical US cultural dominance in Korea from military bases to Koreans migrating to the US. Rosé made her 2017 debut as a member of the four-person multinational K-pop group BLACKPINK, which featured two international members: Jennie Kim, a Korean who went to middle school in New Zealand, and Lisa Manobal, a Thai (to go along with the Korean Kim Jisoo). The group, which sang in a mix of English and Korean, was produced by Teddy Park, a Korean-American from the Los Angeles suburb of Diamond Bar, California.

Worldwide Star

BLACKPINK rocketed to stardom in the K-pop world. The Korean market was relatively small and made up only 2.7% of the world music market, and so BLACKPINK also aimed at the Japanese music market, the second biggest in the world which made up 15.7% of the world’s share. As a result, Rose learned to sing in Japanese, and their Japanese language album Blackpink (2017), debuted atop the Japanese charts. On Japanese TV, Rosé spoke in Korean to emphasize her Korean background (even though English was her native language) since BLACKPINK was capitalizing on Korean cool. To build rapport, Rosé occasionally spoke in Japanese. 

Rose’s Australian background became an asset when promoting in the United States, the world’s largest music market since she could easily converse with reporters in English.  According to Joséphine Lemercier, a journalist of Japanese and Korean pop culture, Rose was successful as the most “Americanized” member of BLACKPINK with inspirations similar to Taylor Swift.

In fact, I feel like Rose’s “Toxic” (2024) from her solo album Rosie sounds Taylor Swift-ish in sound and raw emotion. The handsome actor in the video by the way is Evan Mock, a Hawaii-born mixed Filipino-white skater, model and actor from the teen drama series Gossip Girl. 

K-pop groups enjoy close digital engagement with their fans, who do all they can to ensure the popularity of the artists. For example, fans will coordinate efforts to view music videos repeatedly in order to boost view counts, often into the hundreds of millions. BLACKPINK became one of the most streamed artists in the world. Their music video for "How You Like That" (2020) set a world record for the most-viewed music videos within the first 24 hours of release. BLACKPINK became one of the top 25 best-selling girl groups of all time, and the most streamed girl group in history on Spotify.

Rosé has become a brand ambassador for Yves Saint Laurent

Rosé has become an Instagram star, with 37 million followers on her personal Instagram. (putting her within the top 10 most popular K-pop stars on the platform). She has also become an international style ambassador, as she has served as the global face of brands like Yves Saint Laurent, PUMA, Tiffany & Co. and Rimowa.

Further boosting their international popularity, BLACKPINK collaborated with international stars such as Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Dua Lipa, and Cardi B. Still, the international collaborations reveal a power imbalance between K-pop and international stars. “Sour Candy”(2020) their collaboration with Lady Gaga was released only as an audio track. A Korean friend pointed out to me that when discussing these collaborations, the Korean media tend to discuss the newly gained global fame of Korean culture and highlight the international stars who they collaborated with. Thus, it seems that the collaboration is as if the international star lent their aura to K-pop stars.

Where does Rosé Belong?

So which nation can claim Rosé? New Zealand? Australia? Korea? Consider that she was raised speaking English but when promoting as a K-pop star spoke in Korean, even to non-Korean media outlets. By 2024, with the global success of “Apt.” she had become a bona fide international star, and Rosé could now be interviewed in her native language of English on the Japanese news programs. 

The nature of the Pop Pacific is there is no obvious place or “home” where the artists belong. Rosé herself noted in an interview her lack of a real “home” as she had only been back to Melbourne twice, both times on tour with BLACKPINK. 

'Seoul feels like home for now, but I feel like home is where work is. I feel like a gypsy right now – Is that a word that’s okay? – I really do,' she says.

Rose, in an interview, said that she has a habit of doomscrolling at night and reading negative comments about her online, which makes her feel insecure. Beneath the glitz and glamour of K-pop, idols are still young adults and teens who can be devastated by online bullying. I hope Rosé realizes how much she has inspired youth worldwide. Her transnational journey will inspire young people who may feel marginalized by their home country, and normalize Korean diaspora singers who perform worldwide. May she inspire a future generation of young Asian Australians and New Zealanders playing the piano at home and singing her songs at the top of their lungs.