Milli's sticky rice and mango grabs world's attention

Danupha 'Milli' Khanatheerakul eats mango and sticky rice on the stage of the world-famous Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2022. (Photo: Coachella 2022)
Danupha 'Milli' Khanatheerakul eats mango and sticky rice on the stage of the world-famous Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2022. (Photo: Coachella 2022)

Teenage rap sensation Danupha "Milli" Khanatheerakul on Sunday grabbed the world's attention at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival after eating mango sticky rice on stage.

The snack made the hashtag #khanonieomamuang ("mango sticky rice") a trending topic among Thai Twitter users. As of press time yesterday, #MILLILiveatCoachella remained one of the top trending topics on Twitter, with 1.39 million tweets and counting.

Milli was among the eight artists from Asia who had been invited to perform at California's Coachella, following in the footsteps of Blackpink's Lalisa "Lisa" Manoban -- who performed there back in 2019 -- to become the second Thai artist to perform at the festival.

Dressed in red, she took to the stage at 8.45am Bangkok time yesterday, performing songs which include "Mirror Mirror" and "Sud Pang".

At the end of her performance, Milli held a bowl of mango sticky rice and ate before the audience to promote the dessert. Her snack became the talk of the town in Thailand, with many praising her for using "soft power" to promote Thai culture.

Milli first made headlines in July last year when Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha pressed defamation charges against her over her social media remarks which slammed him for his management of the Covid-19 crisis. The rapper admitted to the charge and paid a 2,000-baht fine.

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Vocabulary

  • attention: interest, especially interest that the public has in a person, event, situation etc - ความสนใจ
  • culture (noun): the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group - วัฒนธรรม
  • defamation: the offence of writing or saying something bad about someone that is not true and makes people have a bad opinion of them - การใส่ร้าย
  • following in the footsteps of (idiom): to do something that someone has already done in the past - ทำตามการกระทำของผู้ที่เกิดก่อนหรือกระทำมาก่อน
  • grab: to take or hold somebody/something with your hand suddenly, firmly or roughly - จับ,ฉวย,คว้า,แย่ง
  • promote: to encourage or support something - สนับสนุน
  • sensation: something very exciting or interesting, or something which causes great excitement or interest - ความตื่นเต้น
  • talk of the town: something that everyone is talking about such as a new popular TV program -
  • trending (adj): being discussed a lot on a social media website - ถูกกล่าวถึงมากในเว็บไซต์สื่อโซ'เชิล (เครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์)
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