Above: Virginir Lau and Karen Lam and early favorites in the 2013 Miss Hong Kong pageant. As the first selection round of TVB’s 2013 Miss Hong Kong Pageant kicks off, so is the advent of tabloid detectives. There were 129 Miss Hong Kong hopefuls, aged 19 to 27, that attended the pageant’s first round interviews at TVB City yesterday. With candidates of different body shapes, national backgrounds, education, and physical appearances, the 2013 Miss Hong Kong pageant is looking to be one of the city’s most entertaining beauty queen competitions in recent years. It is impossible to keep track of all 129 women, but Hong Kong tabloids have picked out a few candidates that is worthy of our attention. Popular candidate Jenny, who resembles a mix of Ho family heiresses Florinda Ho (何超雲) and Laurinda Ho (何超蓮), attracted the reporters and judges with her confidence and elegance. Two other popular candidates, Virginir Lau (劉溫馨), and “Busty Cecilia Cheung” Karen Lam (林芷嘉) are also media favorites. Virginir and Karen’s Backgrounds Revealed Apple Daily reported that the 23-year-old Virginir, who reminded the reporters of a mix between Tracy Chu (朱千雪) and Karena Ng (吳千語), had a Weibo account under the name “Rosemary,” which has since been deleted. On her profile, Virginir claimed that she earned a performance degree from Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama in 2009. The photos in her photo album, which only consisted of 31 pictures, showed Virginir performing at various theater gigs and other acting performances. Educated and talented, Virginir reportedly won first place in a talent competition five years ago and was also torch bearer for the Beijing Olympics. The alleged Weibo account of Virginir had over 1,700 followers before it was deleted. Unlike Virginir, the media’s other hot favorite, Karen, did not seem to worry about the invasion of privacy. As of today, she has kept her Facebook intact. Her photos – amassing to over 1,800 – are available for everyone to see. Karen appears to have an active social life. She has countless photos of herself wearing bikinis and attending rave parties. There are also photos of Karen kissing the lips of a female friend at a yacht party. Party girl or not, Karen is well-educated. Her Facebook noted that she has earned a bachelor’s degree (with honors) on International Trade and English from the University of Portsmouth, England. She has worked for Hong Kong Airlines and is currently the operator of her own online shopping website, 1Piece.DRESSES, as well as the second-hand store, Chanel Expert. TVB announced that 18 out of 400 candidates will be selected to advance to the semi-finals on August 25. The finals will be held on September 1. [video=youtube;tRRwD3OErvc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tRRwD3OErvc[/video] [video=youtube;obvMxGgcRSs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=obvMxGgcRSs[/video] Creds: Apple Daily
