By Lê Hùng Vọng

Seen smoking while sitting in a coffee shop, Miss Việt Nam 2014, Kỳ Duyên, has faced a public backlash for daring to light up. The public has called for the 20-year-old to give up her title.

After a video of the beauty queen hit the internet, Duyên issued an apology on her Facebook page, saying that she should have been more careful about such a “socially controversial act”.

Though the video showed no children or pregnant women in the shop, or signage that prohibited smoking, the public was relentless in their censure.

Not everyone protested, however. Some said they felt sorry for Duyên, saying that her privacy had been invaded. But others claimed that smoking among women was not part of Vietnamese culture.

Lê Xuân Sơn, head of the Miss Vietnam Pageant 2014 organising board, criticised Duyên’s behavior, saying it would affect the image of Vietnamese women as well as the pageant. He also blamed the incident on the pageant’s organising process and poor training of contestants. VNS