Unruffled By Gale

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31276, 24 January 1967, Page 2

Unruffled By Gale

Wearing a magenta red wool georgette ao dai over long black satin trousers in the style of her country’s national dress, Mrs Tuyet Mai Ky walked down the gangway at Christchurch airport yesterday to face as many cameras as are out for a Royal tour.

Dignified and hardly ruffled by the gale, the beautiful wife of the Prime Minister of South Vietnam tied on a pink floral head scarf as she stood on the tarmac for the official welcome. One of her countrywomen, a student in Christchurch, presented her with a bouquet and then Mrs Ky noticed the

friendly faces in the crowd behind the barrier. Walking slightly ahead of her husband, she took every hand that was offered and stood on her toes to reach a child sitting on its father’s shoulder. Mrs Ky stole the show and Marshal Ky looked delighted. "She’s a winner,” a man remarked.

Later a group of women sang, “For she's a jolly good fellow.”

“I was feeling tired after our tour of Australia but when I saw all those friendly, smiling faces out there I relaxed,” she said later. The former air hostess is 25. She is the mother of an infant daughter Duyen (“wonderful love story”). Slightly taller than her husband, Mrs Ky is sft 4in, has a handspan waistline and bearing any model would envy. Her pearl jewellery included a triple strand necklace, brooch, bracelet and earrings. Talking of an operation she had in Tokyo to round her eyes, Mrs Ky laughed merrily. “I had no intention of having it done,” she said. “But a friend of mine and a doctor told me it was very easy and only took about 10 minutes. It is very popular in Japan and other Asian countries, even among Vietnamese women.”

The operation removes one fold in the eyelid, giving the eye a rounder look. “Asian women have three folds, you have only two,” she-said.

It did not make the eyes look bigger, and sly,- could

not see much difference in herself now, she said. “But my husband—he was most surprised,” she said.