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Miss Thailand TG Contest Wows Crowd
By By Sutin Wannabovorn
Reuters
Contributed by Elizabeth Parker & Rachelle Austin
PATTAYA, Thailand
March 28, 1998
The Miss Thailand
contest may have won the battle for beauty pageant viewers, but
a devoted turnout for the country's first transvestite pageant
proved beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
While Thai viewers were glued to their televisions sets on
Saturday night to watch the Miss Thailand pageant, the Tiffany
Theatre brimmed with cheering fans who came to see who would be
crowned the queen of transvestites.
Hundreds of fans burst into wild cheers and applause when
the judges anointed Thanaporn Wongprasert as Miss Tiffany 1998,
the first transvestite beauty queen.
Thanaporn beat 69 other transvestites who paraded in show
costumes, swimsuits and evening gowns during the two-day
contest.
Contestants said they felt it important to be able to
compete and show off their beauty.
Plastic surgery is not permitted in the mainstream Miss
Thailand contest, which has produced two Miss Universe winners
in the past four decades.
But for transvestites, it's a necessity.
"Compared to real women, I am confident that many of us are
even more beautiful, because we can have plastic surgery to make
us as beautiful as we like," Chatarika Issarapakdi, 22, a
police department accountant who was one of the five finalists,
told Reuters.
"Plastic flowers are sometimes more beautiful than the real
ones," said Chatarika, who has already undergone surgery to
change his sex organs to those of a woman.
The new Miss Thailand receives many prizes, including
800,000 baht ($21,300) and a luxury car, usually devotes her
time to promoting the reputation of the country and often vows
to use the money to further her education.
Not so for Miss Tiffany.
"I will spend this money for my beauty," Thanaporn said
when asked how the 50,000 baht prize money would be sent.
The judges said that the large number of beautiful
contestants made it hard to pick a winner on Saturday night.
"The most difficult point is when we have to pick one out
of the final five. Once the beauty is equal we have to use
knowledge, intellect and wit as factors to judge them," said
chief judge Seri Wongmonta, a well known transvestite and an
economist at Thammasat University.
Seri said the contest was important as transvestites have
contributed a lot to the economy of Pattaya, known to many as
Thailand's premier sex and sun resort.
"Many people in Thailand are well aware that the
transvestite cabaret shows are very important to the economy of
Pattaya, so what we are doing here gets a lot of attention from
other people," Seri told Reuters.
About 1,000 tickets costing 500 baht ($1=37.5 baht) each were sold out a
week before the contest, and the Tiffany Theatre's 680 seats
were quickly filled -- forcing many fans to stand and watch.
More than half of the tourists who come to Pattaya will go
to a cabaret show, Seri said.
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