To the outside world, Pornbuncha “O” Maikanta looks like any ordinary young man.
But twice a week, O, who runs a vintage clothing studio in Chiang Mai, undergoes an amazing transformation.
She strips off her skin-tight jeans, ditches her sunglasses and washes the gel out of her hair. Then she slips on stockings, a 1960s-style wig, false eyelashes and a full face of heavy make-up.
Makeover complete, the boyish-looking shop worker is unrecognisable, replaced by a glamorous woman from top to toe.
She hops onto her Vespa and heads to Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital. The outfit seems a little over the top for a trip to the doctor, but O isn’t visiting to the hospital for medical reasons. She is going there to sing.
For those who can’t afford the luxury of private health care, visiting the doctor can mean a long, exhausting and boring day. In many government hospitals, patients arrive before sunrise to get themselves a queue number, and wait all day to see a doctor for less than five minutes.
Changing face: O was born a boy, but knew she wasn’t the child her parents wanted her to be.
SONGS TO RAISE SPIRITS
Apart from taking a nap while waiting for their number to be called, patients and their relatives have nothing to do. O was once one of them. Two years ago she took her friend to see the doctor at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital. They waited in the long queue just like other patients.
Her friend spent the day staring at a game on his mobile phone and checking his Facebook, but O had her eyes fixed firmly on a luk krung singer and a pianist performing in the outpatient lounge. A big backdrop billed the event as the hospital’s “volunteer music show”.
O was glued to the performance and stayed to watch one song after another.
That day of waiting came to an end. But O couldn’t stop thinking about the music at the hospital and how it had transported her back to the golden age of Thai music. A week passed by, but she was unable to shake the thought of the show.
Realising she had found her calling, O contacted the hospital and volunteered to sing, but it wasn’t until one year later that she was accepted as part of the music show. When she arrived, the coordinator of the hospital was stunned by her appearance.
“When she applied, she showed up as a good-looking man. But when she came to sing on the first day, she came dressed as a beautiful woman and sang all songs in a beautiful female voice,” said one member of hospital staff, recalling the first time that he saw O perform. Energetic and enthusiastic, O said she is committed to giving her all to every performance.
She sings three numbers every Monday and Tuesday, bringing the house band to life. In just one year, her act has fast become the most watched show.
Blast from the past: O and her Dream Girls act had a loyal following of fans in Chiang Mai.
SOUNDS OF THE PAST
O, who is 29 and originally from Lampang, grew up in a traditional family, where she learned to love retro music and fashion from her mother.
As a child, the late 1950s and 1960s music of the Suntaraporn band enchanted O, who loved the rhythm, language and tone of the songs she heard played at home. The group started out as the official band of the Public Relations Department and grew wildly popular, before breaking away from its bureaucratic roots.
Rejecting the pop hits of the 1990s, O started to absorb and appreciate classical culture. She developed a taste for the music and fashion from Suntaraporn’s era, and the glamour of the group’s demure Big Band style.
O was born a boy, but knew early on that she wasn’t the child her parents wanted her to be. When she was first exposed to sultry images of Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit, she knew she had found her look.
“They become my idols and I wanted to look just like them,” O said.
O started to mimic the sound of her favourite female singer from Suntaraporn, Srisuda Ratchatawan, who had a unique high-pitched voice. Every time she heard her mother play Srisuda’s songs on their old record player, she would sing along.
She began to combine the fashion and sounds that she loved, forging her own identity as a vintage glamour queen. O has never considered undergoing sex-change surgery, and does not consider herself a crossdresser, but identifies as a katoey.
DREAM GIRLS
O moved to Chiang Mai in 2005, when she won a place to study in the Thai Art Department at Chiang Mai University’s Faculty of Fine Arts.
Senior students traditionally give first years a new nickname when they arrive. O was hanging around by an old motorcycle on campus when an older student spotted her and named her Mia Loy. O accepted the moniker, and has used it as her stage name since.
All new students are required to perform on the night of the university welcome party. O decided she wanted to sing, so gathered five friends to perform as part of a “Dream Girls” act. As a child, O always watched her mother put on her make-up and clothes, but had never tried dressing as a woman herself.
“It was the first night in my life that I learned to dress like a woman and I loved it,” O explained.
O got on stage as the lead vocalist, with her five friends as backup singers. The teachers and seniors looked unimpressed at first. They assumed it was another drag queen lip-syncing act. But their eyes lit up when O started singing the Suntaraporn hit and university song La Puping.
O won her place at university under the Chang Phueak project, which aims to recruit students who excel in cultural and traditional performing arts. At her entrance audition, O performed a masculine ancient northern sword dance, a role that couldn’t be more different from her true identity.
Manop Manasam, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, was in the audience that night. He noticed the group and thought they had potential, so started taking the Dream Girls to various parties, where they would typically perform as a trio. “I was the only singer when we first started, but I trained everyone else to sing. After that we could all perform together, but I stayed on as the lead singer,” O said.
O’s group only performed Suntaraporn's music, and gradually developed a dedicated following in Chiang Mai. Many people, especially of the older generation, hired the group to perform at private parties.
The group performed for free, but gained a wealth of experience and confidence. They sometimes got tips from the audience, but did not spend the cash on personal pleasures. It all went toward a fund for buying dresses, make-up and sequins, plus anything else they could use to enhance their performances.
The group gave up their time for little in return, but O said performing the old songs is like having your own time machine — which money can’t buy. She helps audiences reminisce. Her reward is seeing the looks on their faces.
“Many older ladies cry when they watch me perform. They say the songs remind them of their first date and other sweet memories. That makes me happy and inspires me,” O explained. Her stage name is now Mia Loy Jai Dee, which means “kind” in Thai, in recognition of her voluntary work.
VINTAGE COLLECTOR
The money that O and her group earned during their university years was spent entirely on clothes and accessories, including vintage dresses, glittery jackets, fur coats, make-up and wigs.
But when the Dream Girls graduated, they were forced apart. The members of the group returned to their home towns to pursue their dreams, except for O, who decided to stay on in Chiang Mai.
She became a make-up artist and personal stylist, using her finely-honed skill of making others look their best.
Once in a while the Dream Girls would reunite in Chiang Mai. O would throw a vintage tea party and everyone would dress up in their best clothes, full make-up and wigs, just for old times’ sake.
But apart from the reunion parties, the group’s dresses and accessories sat untouched.
That’s when O decided to open her own fashion studio; to allow the general public to rent out vintage fashion items and clothes for themed parties and events. “Most of my clients are people who have seen my performances in the past. They know what the dresses look like and want to try them out themselves,” O said.
One wall of her studio is painted pastel pink, while another is a soft green. A vintage tea set sits in front of an old-fashioned mirror and old music pipes out from a record player. Stepping inside the shop feels like travelling back in time.
O does not have a particularly small frame. She has feminine curves and her dresses are big enough to suit many large adult women. A number of her clients are older ladies who come into the studio and ask O to transform them into how they looked in their golden days.
O puts on their make-up, sets their hair, dresses them up and helps them regain the confidence of their youth. She usually earns between 500 and 1,000 baht per customer.
GIVE ME A SMILE
O has just celebrated her first anniversary of being a volunteer singer at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, having started performing there in March 2014. Spectrum talked to an officer from the hospital’s public relations department about the volunteer scheme.
He said the project began three years ago when a group of doctors and nurses volunteered to sing during their lunch breaks to entertain the patients. The project was popular and attracted growing audience numbers.
From that point, the scheme expanded, inviting students from Chiang Mai University and some local schools to join.
Now the music show has three bands made up of medical staff and eight from outside the hospital. They take turns entertaining patients from Monday to Friday.
Each day has a theme: Mondays and Tuesdays are for luk krung, Wednesday is for traditional Thai music and a show from the traffic police, Thursday is for Western songs and Friday is for Thai country music.
“The project has been well received by the public. We always welcome new singers to volunteer with us, but for now we have more than enough,” the hospital official said.
According to hospital staff, Mondays and Tuesdays are the most popular days with audiences.
Patients and others who are not sick come to watch the concerts, especially when O sings.
The volunteers are given a lunch box, but nothing else for their performances. For O, that is not the point.
“The patients warm my heart when I look at them and they smile back at me. Many people ask why I am still doing this when I don’t get paid,” O said.
“I tell them that I’ve found what makes me truly happy. Money can’t buy the feeling I get when I am singing here.” n
Womanly shape: O has feminine curves and rents out her dresses to many older ladies.