In a new interview, BLACKPINK star Jennie opened up about growing up in New Zealand, and which BLACKPINK song means the most to her. 

BLACKPINK member and K-pop megastar Jennie only had good things to say about her childhood in New Zealand in a recent interview with Elle. While she was born in South Korea, Jennie spent a considerable chunk of her childhood in New Zealand, a time she credits for making her who she is. 

“This is also something that I recently figured out about myself. Other than the cultural and the language difference that I felt, I didn’t realise how it had affected me, having spent five years living abroad.” she told Elle. 

She added how the years spent in New Zealand nurtured her free spirit: “But recently when I’ve looked at myself, I feel like I was able to grow as a person so much because of what I learned in New Zealand. 

“Because I was such a free child. I would just wake up one day, feel like doing something, and I would just go ahead and do it. I was able to have that life back then.” she added. 

The star went on to say: “So that has somewhat settled inside my core for me to be able to grow into who I am right now: just being able to express myself and understand other people in a better way, because I was put in an environment where I had no clue what they were thinking about. I had to learn to understand people in a different, deeper way.”

Elsewhere, Jennie also opened up about what song from BLACKPINK’s discography meant the most to her. “I’m going to say ‘Whistle,’ because it’s the song that we debuted with.” she claimed. 

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Talking about the reason why, she said: “And I remember at that moment when we heard that song, we all knew that this was a definite core identity of what BLACKPINK was about to do. It had so many different sections. It showed the acoustic vocals and a little bit of our rap, and it had a very catchy hook. And I feel like it had different factors of the foundation of BLACKPINK—of what BLACKPINK was about to do in the future.”

You can read more about this topic over at the Asia Pop Observer.

Check out ‘Whistle’ by BLACKPINK:

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