The Quebec company, Bobba Tea, has issued an apology following Chinese-Canadian Actor, Simu Liu’s attack on the company for “cultural appropriation.”
The controversy emerged after the two head entrepreneurs, Sebastian Fiset and Jesicca Frenette, were seen on Dragons’ Den, getting reprimanded by Liu.
During the segment, Liu held a can of their bubble tea, and noted that it doesn’t indicate that bubble tea originally comes from Taiwan.
Liu then went on a now-viral rant, boasting about his career of uplifting minority entrepreneurs, while suggesting that Bobba tea is doing the opposite by not conforming to his view.
Not only did Liu back out of making an offer to invest in the company, but the subsequent controversy also cost the company an offer worth $1 million dollars from another “Dragon” judge on the show, Manjit Minhas. Days after the show was aired, Minhas bent the knee and released an apologetic statement, saying she experienced a wave of angry comments online.
The irony of the situation is that the Chinese-born Liu once played a Korean character on Kim’s Convenience, a show about a Korean immigrant family operating a Toronto convenience store.
Rebel News Journalist and Conservative commentator, Ezra Levant, called out Liu’s hypocrisy on X, also his “disparaging of white Canadians, while appropriating the English language and Western Wokism.”
Al Jazeera also published a news report detailing the confusion of the Taiwanese public who were confused about the scandal started by the Chinese-Canadian actor.
The Qatari news outlet interviewed a 21-year-old Taiwanese engineering student, Chen, who felt the controversy was silly and said, “In Taiwan, we’re constantly coming up with new kinds of boba tea, so I think it makes sense that people abroad are doing so as well.”
Along with the online backlash caused by the Dragons Den appearance, their loss of investment, the Bobba company issued a statement via Facebook, stating, “We deeply apologize for the harm we have caused by our words and actions on the show.”
