Beautiful women just can't leave us alone

THE NATION NEWSROOM lit up on Tuesday when Miss Thailand World, Nonthawan “Maeya” Thongleng, popped in with her runners-up, Venus “Pat” Nuntachaiand and Chattarika “Care” Sittirom. They were on a tour of media outlets to say thanks for all the pictures and didn’t seem the least bit fatigued after trooping all the way out to Bang Na.
We discovered while chatting up the girls and while the boys were trying (in vain) to get their numbers that there’s much more to Maeya than, you know, dark skin. Obviously she won the title thanks to a host of talents as well as being gorgeous. She’s done a lot of modelling and is quite serious about her singing, having won awards and even releasing a luk thung album on the R Siam label. Meanwhile the 22-year-old is studying “aviation management” at Stamford University here in Bangkok. She said on “Nation Midnight” she’s got plenty more goals in life, “but my teachers always say I should be a flight attendant!”
When she came to the newsroom she asked for a copy of Monday’s paper that had the three of them on the front page. “The photo is really beautiful,” she said, so we decided not to charge her for the paper. But then she asked if we had extra copies for the runners-up. Fortunately her escort-chaperone from BEC-Tero offered to take care of that particular need, so we avoided an embarrassing argument over direct pay versus subscription charges.
Thus, walking off with her free copy of The Nation, Maeya thanked us for the free publicity. (She’s welcome!)
The three young ladies really do represent Thailand well. Maeya is from the South, Venus from the North and Care from the Northeast. (They were asked on our TV show to speak in their local dialect, as if we’d never heard such a thing before.) All are university students and all are plenty tall enough, with Maeya already reaching the highest altitude at 176 centimetres.

Still plugging away
Have fans completely forgotten sweet-voiced little girl Maneepat “Myra” Molly? You know: she was the first winner of “Thailand’s Got Talent” way, way back in 2011. Well anyway, the Thai-American, now 16, isn’t so small now, but she’s still in pursuit of her dream – to sing on Broadway.
Myra is at this moment one of the 18 finalists on “Rising Star”, a talent show on the American TV network ABC – which is incredible considering that they started out with 30,000 contestants. In the penultimate round she sang “Con te Partiro” for the gape-mouthed judges, among whom is singer-rapper Kesha.
The final round is on July 13 and, if you don’t mind, she’d appreciate it if her fans in Thailand could send a few million votes her way. “Can you guyS kindly ‘like’ and ‘share’ this ‘Rising Star’ clip of mine?” she posted in Thai on Facebook. “Thanks so much kha!”
“If there was no support from you guys I wouldn’t have made it here,” Myra added, also in Thai, in a home video on Tuesday. “I’ve already prepared my song for the next round, so please stay tuned!”