Vietnam’s most famous female DJ passes away at 30 | Look At Vietnam

Vietnam’s most famous female DJ passes away at 30

March 27, 2012

LookAtVietnam – DJ Bo, the beautiful “magician of sound”, died at 7am, March 25. She was only 30.

DJ Bo’s real name is My Quyen. She is among the most famous females in Vietnam at present.
According to DJ Phat, who taught My Quyen for seven years, My Quyen had a serious cough but she did not see doctor. She went to the northern port city of Hai Phong to perform, without taking warm clothes with her. Her cough got more seriously and she had to take tranquillizers to be able to sleep.

My Quyen was in a coma when she was hospitalized at a clinic in Hai Phong. Doctors said that she got acute pneumonia. As the disease developed rapidly, doctor could not quickly send her to Hanoi for treatment. The DJ passed away at 7am, March 25. Her body was transported to HCM City on March 26. She will be incinerated on March 27.
My Quyen worked as a DJ for 12 years. She won the first prize at the Seeking Vietnam’s Talented DJs and the second award at the Seeking Asian Talented DJs. She was praised as a DJ who performed fresh, creative music which could connect the crowd.

My Quyen and her daughter.

My Quyen was not only complimented for her talent but also for her beauty, her transparent eyes and sweet voice.
She has a 3-year-old daughter named Yuna with DJ Hoang Anh, who used to be the top DJ of Vietnam. They are separated for a period of time and Yuna now lives with her father.
My Quyen’s parents are in the US so her funeral will be organized by her friends.

Thu Hang

Transsexual Flight Attendants Take Off on Thailand's P.C. Air | NewsFeed | TIME.com

Ladyboy’ Flight Attendants Begin Their Ascent with Thailand’s P.C. Air

By William Lee Adams | @willyleeadams | December 16, 2011 | 1

inShare3

REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom

Transgender flight attendants pose for photographers at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

At Thailand’s P.C. Air, transsexual flight attendants are taking to the skies—and boosting acceptance of the country’s “third sex” while they’re at it.
Four transsexual flight attendants completed their inaugural flight over Thailand earlier today, serving drinks and snacks en route from Bangkok to Surat Thani province. That comes ten months after the recently-launched P.C. Air announced it would consider applications it had received from more than 100 transvestites and transsexuals. Four made the cut and joined a cabin crew that also includes 19 female and seven male flight attendants.
(MORE: Thailand Elects its First Female Prime Minister)
Peter Chan, the airline’s president, told Reuters that the new recruits faced the same stringent application process as applicants who were born female. Bosses judged them on criteria that included femininity, attractiveness and proficiency with English and Mandarin. They also had to demonstrate feminine posture and vocals. He believes that transgender flight attendants will prove more versatile than the airline’s more traditional recruits. “They might provide better services because they understand both males and females. And they’re well-trained according to the aviation standard,” he said. “I’m a pioneer, and I’m sure there will be [other] organizations following my idea.” (The airline doesn’t draw its name from its politically correct approach to recruitment: P.C. refers to Chan’s initials.)
Known locally as ladyboys or katoeys, Thailand’s transsexuals enjoy greater acceptance and visibility than their counterparts anywhere else in the world. Skilled surgeons have turned Bangkok into a capital for gender reassignment, and relatively low costs make procuring a sex change more realistic than in the United States, where fees can easily run into the six figures. The Miss Tiffany pageant—Thailand’s most prestigious beauty contest for male-to-female transsexuals—is broadcast nationally every year. And millions of tourists flock to transgender musical shows, like the Simon Cabaret in Phuket.
P.C. Air’s newest trolley dollies hope their work will allow other katoeys to explore careers off the stage and away from the beauty counter. “This is the beginning of the acceptance of transsexuals in Thailand, giving the opportunity for us to work in various fields,” 22-year old Tanyarat Jirapatpakorn told Reuters. “Maybe in the future we can get any job that transsexuals never did before, such as police, soldiers or even pilots.”
For now, though, they’re content to scratch flight attendant off the list. Twenty-three-year old Dissanai Chitpraphachin, a former winner of the Miss Tiffany pageant, told the Associated Press her new gig was a dream come true. “When I was young, I couldn’t take my eyes off those nicely dressed ladies in the airline commercials every time they came on the screen,” she said before starting her new career. Now, as you can see in the commercial below, Thailand has its eyes on her.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/16/ladyboy-flight-attendants-begin-their-ascent-with-thailands-p-c-air/#ixzz1h5n2qfcb

Transsexual Flight Attendants Take Off on Thailand's P.C. Air | NewsFeed | TIME.com

India, China 'missing' 85 million women: U.N.

"NEW DELHI -- The United Nations estimated Monday that India and China are “missing” about 85 million women who died from discriminatory health care and neglect or who were never born at all.

In a major report on gender equality, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) found that Asia had the highest male-female sex ratio at birth in the world, with 119 boys born for every 100 girls.

This far exceeded the global world average of 107 boys for every 100 girls.

“Females cannot take survival for granted,” the report said. “Sex-selective abortion, infanticide, and death from health and nutritional neglect in Asia have left 96 million missing women ... and the numbers seem to be increasing in absolute terms,” it added.

The regional figure was skewed by enormous birth gender disparities in China and India, which each accounted for about 42.6 million of the report's “missing” figure.

Despite robust economic growth across Asia as a whole, the report found that millions of women remained excluded from the benefits of greater prosperity.

The region, and especially South Asia, ranks near the worst in the world — often lower than sub-Saharan Africa — on basic issues such as protecting women from violence, as well as access to health, education, employment and political participation.

“Today, the Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads,” the report said. “Whether gender equality is pushed aside or pursued with greater energy amid the economic downturn depends on actions taken or not taken now by governments.”

The report focused on the need to improve women's rights in three key areas: economic power, political participation, and legal protection."

Ann Bryan Mariano, reported on Vietnam War

WASHINGTON - Ann Bryan Mariano, who was one of the first female combat correspondents covering the Vietnam War and who sued the Pentagon to keep her publication on military-base newsstands, died Feb. 25 of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Belmont Manor Nursing Home in Belmont, Mass. She was 76.

In 1965, Mariano - then Ann Bryan - was sent to Saigon to start an Asian edition of Overseas Weekly, a scrappy German-based tabloid that saw itself as an irreverent alternative to the semiofficial Stars and Stripes. The paper took particular delight in uncovering the misdeeds of military brass and offered its readers, most of them GIs, 12 pages of color comics and a weekly buffet of bosomy beauties.

Mariano exported Overseas Weekly's iconoclastic exuberance to Vietnam and "added a lot of depth to it," said Tracy Wood, who reported from Vietnam for United Press International. Under Mariano's leadership, the newspaper reported on war profiteers, officers involved in the black market, pot smoking among soldiers and racial prejudice in the Army. It also carried articles on doctors and relief workers assisting refugees and orphans and broke a story about U.S. soldiers at Long Binh Army base, outside Saigon, complaining that they didn't have enough rifles and ammunition.
The Defense Department barred Overseas Weekly from newsstands in Vietnam and post exchanges throughout Asia.

"Our only recourse was a lawsuit," Mariano recalled in a chapter she contributed to "War Torn: Stories of War From the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam" (2002).

In 1966, the paper filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, accusing Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara of violating the First Amendment by banning distribution of the newspaper in the Pacific region. While the suit was pending, Mariano arranged for the paper to be published in Hong Kong and flown in to Saigon. Vietnamese newsboys hustled it on the streets and outside military barracks. Local authorities began confiscating copies.

"As it became clear the troops could trust us, soldiers began calling our office directly with tips and information, by-passing official channels," Mariano recalled in "War Torn." "We began getting stories that ran counter to the rah-rah military point of view, which, of course, kept us often at odds with the Pentagon."

Overseas Weekly lost its suit against the Pentagon but won on appeal in 1967.

Mariano also had to fight the Pentagon for battlefield access, not because she reported for Overseas Weekly but because she was a woman. The Pentagon eventually lifted its ban against female correspondents.

She left Overseas Weekly in 1971 and lived briefly in San Francisco with her new husband, Frank Mariano, an Army helicopter pilot and information officer who later worked as a correspondent for ABC News.

The couple returned to Vietnam two years later, and she worked as a freelance reporter for the Associated Press and the Daily Express of London.