Miss Asia 2008 - First Round Complete !!!

Miss Asia 2008

The first round of the Miss Asia 2008 Pageant finals was held this evening at the ATV studios in Taipo. Of the 19 finalists, five were selected to enter the grand finale on Sunday and a further eight were put back to the audience vote in the Resurrection round, where the top three will also join the final show. The remaining six contestants were eliminated and left the contest.

The top five contestants who are safely through to the next round are Number 1 Eunis Yao , Number 3 Belinda Yan and Number 6 Bonnie Yuen, all from Hong Kong; Number 9 Lene Lai from Taiwan and Number 16 Cindy Zhao, who hails from Hubei Province in China. Eunis caught the attention of the audience when she raised a few laughs during the interview round by mispronouncing the Cantonese word for "handkerchief" (mo gan jai) as "mushroom" (mo goo jai).

Despite being dubbed as the mainland's votes grabber, Number 19 Ada Wang from Yunnan Province in China was ousted by her peers in a cruel contestant vote ahead of the evening's competition. The other contestants who go no further included Number 11 Clarissa Lin from Singapore, Number 12 Pannapa Prabpai from Thailand and Number 13 Danae Shen, Number 14 Liza Wang and Number 20 Bonnie Li, all from Mainland China. Bonnie also gathered the lowest number of votes from the internet and telephone lines, with only 8125 votes.

Among the eight ladies awaiting the outcome of the next vote is Number 4 Melody Yao, half-sister of Vaness Wu, who avoided the cut despite displaying a much fuller figure than the rest of the contestants when she posed in her animal print swimsuit.

There was some controversy ahead of the show, when comedian Jim Chim, who was originally lined up to appear on the show, pulled out at the last minute. He had taken offence to some remarks made in jest by ATV Deputy-CEO Mr Yip Ka Po about Jim's "revealing" performance during an earlier promotional event. Jim had issued a statement explaining his withdrawal following the "lewd and idiotic" remarks from Mr Yip, demanding an apology from the executive and reserving the right to legal action.

Mr Yip commented that Jim's performance was not crucial to the show, so his absence did not prove a great hindrance. He also emphasised that he was not capitalising on the incident with Jim to create further publicity for the pageant.