Interview with Kara: Soompi at the Roundtable at MTV World Stage in Malaysia

Soompi was recently given the awesome opportunity to attend a roundtable interview with Kara before their performance at the MTV World Stage in Malaysia! We didn’t anticipate how popular Kara would be during their first visit to the country. With all the reporters in the room clamoring to interview them (more than anyone had anticipated), we were only able to fit in two questions. However, MTV Asia graciously allowed us to record the entire interview for the benefit of our Soompiers!

After what seemed like a long wait, the five girls filed in. It was great to see Seungyeon, who had fallen ill just before the K5J perfume showcase in Singapore, recovered and in good enough shape to join Gyuri, Nicole, Hara, and Jiyoung. We loved the coordinated turquoise and white outfits they wore for the interview! Leader Gyuri was dressed in a turquoise chiffon blouse with white short pants. Nicole was in a high-low hem shirtdress underneath a white short-sleeved jacket. Hara looked cute in a printed sundress and bow hairband. Seungyeon wore a turquoise sheath top with skinny white pants. Finally, Jiyoung showed off her long legs in a short baby doll dress in lace fabric. The girls greeted themselves and conducted the interview gamely, answering questions about their new perfume, their thoughts about Malaysia, what type of music they listen to in their spare time, and their favorite physical feature (Soompi question)!

Click CC to get captions in English, Spanish, and French!

Q: What is Kara’s appeal?

Gyuri: Onstage, we are very professional. While on various variety shows, we display a very  cute “girl next door” image. We believe these various personalities are our biggest strength.

Q: How do you maintain your popularity in Korea and overseas?

Seungyeon: We believe that we are able to maintain our popularity because we’re constantly practicing and taking care of ourselves. Many people like us for our candid personalities, and we’re always practicing hard to meet their expectations!

Q: You are the first girl group after BoA and DBSK to sell a million singles. Where were you girls when you heard the news and what was your reaction?

Gyuri: We first read the news when we were in Korea. We were thrilled and honored to see that all of our hard work had paid off.

Q: My question is about your SNS/Twitter activities. Do you read your fans’ replies, and how do you feel about it being a platform to communicate with your fans?

Hara: All five of us have our own SNS accounts. We use them as a channel to communicate with our fans; we personally check up on the responses and learn what our fans are thinking.

Q: Do you have a message for your Malaysian fans?

Jiyoung: This is our first time in Malaysia! We think it’s a great place because of its beautiful scenery. I hope we have more opportunities to perform here in Malaysia.

Soompi Q: You are well known for your catchy pop tunes, but what artist or type of music do you listen to that would surprise your fans?

Nicole: We are to try keep an open ear to all genres of music, so I think that it helps us to widen our expanse in music industry. Personally, a few of us like to listen to rap and hip-hop, rock, punk rock, and contemporary music.

Q: Do you observe any rituals before you perform?

Jiyoung: The five of us cross our hands and shout “Hwaiting!”

Q: Among yourselves, who has a lot of acting experience?

Nicole: All of us were in a drama call “We are Kara” in Japan, but in the past, and presently Gyuri has been in a drama called “Reckless Family.” And Hara was in a SBS drama called “City Hunter,” and Jiyoung also came out in a drama called “Rainbow Rose” in Japan.

Q: You came out with a fragrance called K5J; tell us what is it like.

Seungyeon: When we were in France, we met with a professional perfumer and discussed what fragrance best suited our image. The perfumer believed that we should come out with a fragrance that is bright and fresh. That’s how we came out with our fragrance.

Q: Continuing on with the fragrance, can we look forward to a beauty line? Considering you girls have really flawless skin, can we expect that you girls come up with a makeup line?

Nicole: We don’t have anything in particular but it would be a great opportunity for us to expand into that area.

Q: You will be performing at the MTV World Stage tomorrow, so what can we expect from the performance?

Nicole: We are preparing a hit medley of our songs, for example like “Step,” “Mister,” and we are also performing a song that was in our “Wanna” album called “Let It Go.” We haven’t actually performed that on TV yet; it’s our first time and we are very excited about it.

Q: Your fans often hear about your least favorite physical aspects, but since you are such beautiful ladies, there must be something that you like about yourself. What is your favorite physical feature?

Jiyoung: Height, slender figure, and legs.

Nicole: Eyes.

Gyuri: Eyes.

Seungyeon: My small face.

Hara: Never put on weight!

The interview ended, and we had to say goodbye to Kara, who needed to prepare for their amazing performance at MTV World Stage the next day. It was great to be able to meet the five beautiful ladies! Many thanks to MTV Asia for inviting Soompi to interview Kara!

Article credit: Rebby@Soompi