Khing Hnin Wai is a physical education instructor living in Pyinmana, Myanmar. According to her Facebook profile, she did her regular workout on Monday morning, which she recorded when vehicles began rushing to parliament for a coup.
The army, also known as the Tatmadaw, disputed the November election results, claiming there had been fraud in the election. No evidence of the alleged fraud was adduced.
STRINGER / AFP via Getty Images
The three-minute video of Khing Hnin Wai went viral on social media, and her cardio-pumping movements are facing the army in Myanmar that is rapidly arriving to take over the country’s government. She does not once interrupt her movements as cars chase after the blocked road to Myanmar’s parliament behind her.
Reactions began to spread on social media as the world watched Khing Hnin Wai’s command against the backdrop of a democracy in crisis and garnered more than 40,000 votes on Reddit.
Reddit user General_Valentine translated a post on Khing Hnin Wai’s Facebook that she wrote about the incident, with more than 1,000 comments and nearly 9,000 shares. The report reads:
“Well, the music / tunes and the background definitely complement each other. Before I knew this news this morning, I was doing my normal thing and recording a video for a competition. I think this video is now my little souvenir While I was dancing, helicopters were going to whirl-whirl-whirl, cars were going pious-pious. With all the guns, I thought someone was pointing at me from afar. then go and say hello. Please do not copy and paste my video! “
Some social media reactions have questioned the authenticity of the video, but Khing Hnin Wai posted a number of other workout videos on her Facebook profile in the same place, according to a follow-up post she published on Monday. Khing Hnin Wai said in the second post that the dance video is for a competition, and she did not continue dancing as a ‘joke’, nor in an attempt to gain ‘fame’. She added that she did not think the video would ever go viral.
The normal exercise of Khing Hnin Wai’s training session contrasts with the disruption caused by the coup in the country. Television signals were cut across the country, and telephone and internet access were lost in the capital, Naypyidaw, in the Southeast Asian country, the Associated Press reported. Naypyidaw is about 20 km from Pyinmana, or about 20 minutes drive.
The coup is President Joe Biden’s first international crisis. White House press secretary Jen Psaki has issued a statement saying the US opposes the military, which is hampering Myanmar’s “democratic transition”. According to the Associated Press, the military claims his actions were legal.
Newsweek reached out to Khing Hnin Wai for comment but did not hear in time for publication.