Hope for the future

What they can learn is to have a buoyant spirit – and the ability to show respect to others. 

Parnsawan “Bungkee” Yanvaro, winner of the second season of Thailand’s “The Voice Kids”, visited our newsroom yesterday, accompanied by five of the finalists – Vanessa “Saa” Hemmingsen, Piyatida “Maprang” Lekklang (who was a runnerup), Atiwat “Aof” Changnoi, Yulradee “Nadia” Khumkanokkan (another runnerup) and Nutrada “Donut” Chiansee. Everyone was in a cheerful mood and they all seemed like good buddies despite the fierce competition they’d been through. 

Asked whether they’d expected anyone in particular to win, they all replied the same: Whoever it was, they didn’t mind, because they respected each other’s talent, “so it didn’t matter who won”, as one of them put it. 

Bungkee plans to spend her Bt1 million in loot treating her friends to gifts. “But I’ll also save some of the money,” said the 13yearold. “I hadn’t thought about before because I didn’t expect to win!” 

The youngsters also demonstrated the respect they have for their coaches. Asked which of the coaches was strictest, everyone said all the coaches are friendly. Pretty admirable stuff, not to mention the unwavering smiles (even while singing us a song) and energy to spare despite a packed schedule. Yesterday alone they toured five different media outlets, starting early in the day at Channel 3. 

 

 

Worry over missing stuntman mars “Grandmaster” triumph

Director Wong Karwai got fairly emotional at the Asian Film Awards in Macau last Thursday when his movie “The Grandmaster” was named the best of the lot and scooped six other trophies as well, including best director and yet another bestactress nod for Zhang Ziyi. Wong explained to Agence FrancePresse later, though, that hadn’t been weepy because he was overwhelmed by the triumph, but because he was thinking about Ju Kun, a stuntman on the movie.

Ju Kun, 35, was one of the passengers on Malaysian Airlines’ vanished Flight 370. He was reportedly heading to Beijing to visit his family.

So Wong, in his acceptance speech, asked the Malaysian government to be more forthcoming in sharing the results of the search for the missing jetliner. “One of our martialarts directors unfortunately is one of the victims of MH370, so here I hope the Malaysian government can try their best to address this issue by taking a more transparent attitude ... and to let us know the truth,” Wong said onstage.

Zhang, his leading lady, echoed Wong’s sentiments and said she too was feeling quite sombre despite the slew of awards. “Today I’m very emotional about our crew member and friend. We’ll have to say goodbye to him forever,” she said.

Inspired by the life of Yip Man, mentor to the great kungfu movie star Bruce Lee, the stylised martialarts epic “The Grandmaster” took more than six years to complete, with the result that the cast and crew became like a family. 

Wong and Zhang are among many people who have criticised the Malaysian government over the limited and sometimes contradictory information given out about the search.