Among Hanoi’s thousands of cafés, the Dem Vong Café has enjoyed an unusual popularity – for nearly a year, it’s been the venue for fashion shows by ‘Pattaya,’ a group of five openly transsexual Vietnamese ‘girls.’
 |
| Five members of Pattaya group. |
In HCM City, transsexuals are no longer uncommon. They often appear at cafes, bars, hairdressing salons and tea-shops. Not so in Hanoi. The show at Dem Vong Café is unique.
The ‘Pattaya’ shows take place every Monday and Thursday night at the 200 square meter café on Vong Street in Hanoi’s Hai Ba Trung District, not far from the Polytechnic University. Since this café began such fashion shows, it has attracted a lot of curious, mainly male, customers. The café’s staff say that it is always standing room only whenever the Pattaya group performs.
A VNExpress reporter visited the Dem Vong Café to watch a show by Pattaya.
Standing room only
 |
The show started at 8.30. “Can you believe,” an MC asked the crowd, “that these stunning girls had to experience many plastic surgeries so that their bodies look as they do today? Besides their sweet appearance, just like other women, they also have “other things” like real women. Annually, they have to return to Thailand for ‘maintenance.’”
The MC took pains to remind the audience that these models were men who have become women after going to Thailand for transgender operations.
Hundreds of eyes looked toward the small stage. Thuy Tien (18) appeared in a multi-layered dress and four other girls (Ngoc Linh (18), Thuy Linh (19), Phuong Linh (22) and Phi Hoai Trinh followed, dressed in a collection called “Yellow Sunlight, Blue Sea.”
Bouncing down the catwalk to pulsating music, under colored lights, the five transsexual models looked very confident and professional. The show got hotter when they appeared in swimwear and were warmly welcomed by the audience. After the fashion show, they also performed sweet songs.
 |
“My friends and I often come here to watch the show,” said a young man. “Before Pattaya performed here, this café invited a group of transsexual girls from Saigon, but they were not beautiful. These days it has become normal for transsexuals to perform onstage”.
The host said that each of the Pattaya girls has her own talent. Ngoc Linh’s passion is make-up art and Thuy Linh, the group’s leader, is a dress designer. All the costumes that Pattaya used in their shows were designed by Thuy Linh.
Painful decisions
 |
| Phuong Anh and Ngoc Linh. |
To realize their true nature, the “girls” in the Pattaya group have had to pay a huge amount of money, up to 30,000 US dollars for the long and painful transgender surgeries.
According to Dan Tri online newspaper, they named the group “Pattaya” to remember the resort city in Thailand where they “found” themselves.
“The first times we performed at Dem Vong Café, people flocked there to see us. But they came because they were curious, not because they were sympathetic,” Phuong Linh told Dan Tri.
Ngoc Linh said the group is paid 900,000 dong for a show. “Making money from fashion shows is not important for us. Even if they paid us more, it wouldn’t be enough to live on,” Thuy Linh said. “We survive with our pay from our principal jobs. Modeling is only a sideline.”
 |
Ngoc Linh is a Hanoian who works as a make-up artist for a wedding dress shop. Linh explains that she was the eldest boy in her family. When Linh was small, she only had friends that were girls and, as she grew up, Linh could not change her girly style. Linh’s parents were very sad about her decision to become a girl, but they have come to accept Linh’s transformation.
“I’m now the eldest sister in my family. After work, I often go to the market to buy food and return home to cook for my family,” Linh says.
Life was harder for Phuong Anh. She was the only son in a family from Hai Duong city, east of Hanoi.
 |
“I loved cosmetics when I was a child. Whenever my aunt put on makeup, I hid in the room to watch her,” Phuong Anh recalls.
“In my hometown, life is much different from Hanoi. Rural people would never accept a person like me,” she adds. “They cursed me whenever they saw me and I had to stay home all the time to avoid their harsh glares. Eventually, I had to leave Hai Duong for Hanoi.”
The five girls of Pattaya have experienced a great deal of pain in both their bodies and souls to live as they do. There are many more people in Vietnam like them who also endure such pain and hide themselves.
VietNamNet/VNE/Dan Tri
