This year’s Miss Universe pageant will be held in Nha Trang, Viet Nam, on 14 July. We look back to some of the region’s beauty queens who made waves not only in their home countries but across the world.

Zhang Zilin from CHINA won in last year’s Miss World and is the first from East Asia to win the title. Zhang is a model and also an athlete, having trained in various types of sports at the tender age of eight. She excels in triple jump and hurdles and has undergone professional training in the 100-metre hurdles alongside Olympic gold medalist Liu Xiang.

In 1983, Maggie Cheung won second place and Miss Photogenic in the Miss HONG KONG pageant. She may not have won the major title but she went on to grab a more significant position as one of Asia’s most celebrated actresses, winning international acting awards. Her breakthrough role was Jackie Chan’s leading lady in Police Story, but it was Wong Kar Wai’s movie As Tears Go By in 1988 that began her serious acting career.

Sushmita Sen won the title of Miss INDIA at the age of 18 beating Aishwarya Rai. She became Miss Universe in 1994 and has since become gained fame in Bollywood. Sen, who has also adopted a baby girl, is known as a pretty daring person in the Indian film industry. She dates openly and even admitted to an affair with a married man.

JAPAN’s Riyo Mori is the only second Japanese to bag the Miss Universe crown, winning it in 2007. The dance instructor from Shizuoka plans to open a multicultural dance school in Tokyo. The first Japanese to win the crown was Akiko Kojima in 1959.

Lee Ha-nui, better known as Honey Lee in the Western media, represented SOUTH KOREA at the Miss Universe 2007 pageant in Mexico City. She ended her country’s 19-year-drought by finishing as 3rd runner-up. Since then, she has clinched endorsement deals for fashion brands and appeared on TV shows.

Michelle Yeoh was crowned Miss MALAYSIA in 1983. In the 1990s, she started her movie career in Hong Kong acting in martial arts films like The Heroic Trio and Wing Chun. She became an A-list Asian actor when she played the role of a Bond girl in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. Her Hollywood credential includes Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.

The PHILIPPINES’ Gloria Diaz is a veteran actress and the first Filipino to bring home the Miss Universe crown. She was only 18 when she became Miss Universe in 1969 after outsmarting other candidates on the question on how to welcome the first men that had just landed on the moon—Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins—as soon as they were back on the planet. The second Filipina to win the Miss Universe pageant in 1973 is Margarita Moran-Floirendo, now engaged in business and married to a politician.

Bangkok-born Apasara Hongsakula held the Miss Universe title in 1965 and was the first candidate from THAILAND to win the crown. She was a high school student at a boarding school in Singapore when she won. At 5’4” tall, Apasara is the shortest Miss Universe ever crowned. The second Thai Miss Universe is Porntip Nakhirunkanok who won in 1988 at the age of 19. Porntip is well-known in Thailand for her charity work, especially her effort to help the victims of the 2004 tsunami. (ANN/ AsiaNews)