Mandalay Gazette’s Cover Face – Audrey Wong

အလှပန်း – တောင်ပိုင်းကယ်လီဖိုးနီးယားသင်္ကြန်လှယဉ်ကျေးမယ် Audrey Wong

တောင်ပိုင်းကယ်လီဖိုးနီးယားမြန်မာအသင်း၏၂၀၁ဝပြည့်နှစ်သင်္ကြန်လှယဉ်ကျေးမယ်ပထမဆုနှင့် ၂၀၁ဝလပ်စ်ဗေးဂတ်စ်မြန်မာမိသားစုရိုးရာသင်္ကြန်ပွဲတော်၏ ဖက်ရှင်လှယဉ်ကျေးမယ်ပထမဆုရ Audrey Wong သည်မြန်မာစကားပြောနိုင်သော်လည်း မန္တလေးဂေဇက်နှင့်အလှပန်းအင်တာဗျူးပြုလုပ်ရာတွင် အင်္ဂလိပ်စကားကပိုမိုအဆင်ပြေသဖြင့်အင်္ဂလိပ်ဘာသာဖြင့်ဖေါ်ပြလိုက်ပါသည်။

Your name, age, height, weight, religion, born place and race ?
My name is Audrey Wong.  I am turning 20 on October 21.  My height is 5’4” and my weight 125 lbs.  I am a Buddhist and was born in Monterey Park, California.  I am a Burmese-Chinese.

Where do you live?
I currently live in Monterey Park, California with my parents and older sister.

Which university are you attending?
I graduated from Mark Keppel High School (Alhambra) in 2008 and am currently attending California State University, Los Angeles as a Communications major.

Are you working part time or not?
I am currently not working because I go to school as a full-time student and would like to dedicate my time to focus better on my studies.

In College, working part time is good or not?
While studying and working part time can be very beneficial, it can be risky at the same time if you become distracted from your studies and too focused on working.

Which is better…Living in dorm or living with parents?
I think living in a dorm provides good experience to live independently.  However, I prefer to stay at home with my family because I feel safer and have more support, and I don’t have to worry about financial problems.

What is your ambition? Is that the same ambition as when you were young?
When I was young, I wanted to be a singer or an actress.  Now, I hope to become a TV news anchor or journalist someday.

What second language did you take in high school? Can you speak & write Burmese?
In high school, I took Mandarin as my second language.  I speak Burmese at home with my family and am currently learning how to write and read Burmese on Sundays.

What is your hobby? Do you like sport? Do you watch sport channel  regularly?
I love to sing, dance, and cook.  I also play basketball and pool (billiards), but do not watch sports channel often.

What TV Channels or series, Radio Stations are your favorite? You like “American Idol” or not?
My favorite TV channels are Food Network and Disney Channel.  I mostly listen to 97.1 AMP Radio.  I have not seen the recent seasons of American Idol, but I did enjoy watching the first 3 seasons.

Please tell me your interest in Dancing? Do you listen to Burmese Music CD? Any Favorite Music and Singers?
My interest in dance started when I was in kindergarten and grew when I joined my high school dance team. I don’t listen to Burmese music on a daily basis, but I do enjoy listening to it.
I am open to all kinds of music. My favorite singers are Celine Dion and Marie Digby.

Have you ever been to Burma? What is the places of interest for you?
I have not been to Burma, but I am interested in visiting the Shwedagon Pagoda and Mandalay city.

Do You like Burmese food? What is your favorite Burmese food? What kind of food you like most?
I love eating Burmese food!  My favorite would be the tea leaf salad (vÇufokwf).  I also love eating sushi and Italian food.

What car are you driving? What is your favorite car and Why?
I currently do not have a car, but my favorite car would be either a Toyota or a Lexus because they’re reliable and comfortable.

Can you please compare the freedom of America and other countries?
Also please compare the weather, environment in Los Angeles with other states?
Although I have not been to another country, I believe that America has more freedom than most other countries from reading and watching the news.
The weather and environment in Los Angeles is very nice compared to other states.  In a day, you could go swimming at a beach, go hiking or skiing in the mountains, and go car racing in the deserts.

Who is your Idol or Mentor in your life and Why?
My mentor in life would be my first teacher in kindergarten, Mrs. Knar.  When I started kindergarten, I didn’t enjoy reading or writing, but because she encouraged me, I now love to read and write.  She also introduced me to playing the piano, singing, and dancing.  We still keep in touch and she still guides me and helps me.
Another mentor would be my choir director in high school, Mr. Azeltine.  He not only taught me how to sing better, but also taught me valuable life lessons.  Though he was strict, his actions pushed me to perform better in everything I do and has taught me that giving 100% and working smart while having fun will lead to a more successful life.

Do you like reading? Have you ever read the Mandalay Gazette Newspaper? Can you read Burmese? Please comment on Newspaper Reading.
I enjoy reading Harry Potter.  I cannot fully read the Mandalay Gazette Newspaper because I am still learning how to read and write Burmese.  I mostly read the newspaper online.

Do you like Traveling? Where is your favorite city in USA?
I like traveling, but do not do so often.  I would say that LA is my favorite city based on weather and environment.

What kind of name brands you like in Fashion, dress, purse, make-up and shoes?
I mostly shop at Forever 21.  I currently use a Guess purse and make-up from Sephora.  I love wearing heels, but usually wear flip flops or basketball shoes.

What kind of Cell phones, Note book Computer are you using?
I am currently using a Samsung A177 cell phone and a green Dell Studio laptop.

What is the Internet impact on you? Internet is useful or harmful to the school kids?
The Internet is a combination of leisure and learning and can help kids find information easier, but as a downside, it can also distract students from studying and make access to inappropriate material more accessible.

What is your experience in Burmese Thingyan Water festival and Miss Thingyan Event and feeling?
The Miss Thingyan event was such an amazing experience!  I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and interacting with all the other contestants.  Through the LA Thingyan Festival and the Vegas Thingyan Festival, I have gained more Burmese friends.

Any Unforgettable memorable moment in your life?
One unforgettable moment would be when I went to Sacramento to perform in the All-State Honor Choir.  Choir students from all around California audition to participate in this and only a couple hundred are selected based on scores from the audition.

Your contact e mail address?
Lostgirl_1021@yahoo.com

Any message through the Mandalay Gazette to the readers??
Always remember that family comes first and always give your best at everything you do!

Audrey…Thank you very much from Mandalay Gazette.

Note: Published in Mandalay Gazette Vol4/Issue 7 (October 2010)
အလှပန်း၊ ခေတ်စမ်းလုလင် ကဏ္ဍသည် မန္တလေးဂေဇက်တွင် ၂၀၀၆ခုနှစ်ကတည်းက လစဉ်ပုံမှန်ပါနေကျကဏ္ဍဖြစ်သည်။