Chinese actress Fan Bingbing takes part in Bangkok’s Songkran parade
Chinese actress Fan Bingbing has played roles in period dramas ranging from handmaiden Jinsuo in My Fair Princess (1998 to 1999) to Chinese empress Wu Zetian in The Empress Of China (2014 to 2015).

On April 11, Fan was dressed in traditional Thai costume and stood atop a float fashioned from a tuk-tuk decorated with flowers, at a Songkran parade in Bangkok.

“Hello Thailand,” Fan, 42, wrote in English on Instagram and Facebook on April 12. “Sending warm wishes for a blessed and joyful Songkran.” Songkran, the traditional Thai new year, falls on April 13.

“I was very happy to be taking part in the Songkran Festival in Thailand for the first time,” she wrote in Chinese on Chinese social media platform Weibo. “The Thai friends were very welcoming and the traditional costumes were beautiful.”

The Chinese actress also shared photos of her posing in a Chinese traditional outfit in Bangkok on social media earlier on April 12.

Fan was invited to be a special guest at the Maha Songkran World Water Festival 2024, according to a Facebook post by the Tourism Authority of Thailand on April 10. The festival runs from April 11 to 15.

Fan had shifted her focus overseas, after a tax evasion scandal in 2018 derailed her career in China, where projects she had lined up were shelved indefinitely.

She was in Singapore in late 2023 to receive the Cinema Icon Award at the Singapore International Film Festival.

She was in Australia in early 2024 to film the movie Ice Road 2: Road To The Sky, which stars Hollywood actor Liam Neeson. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
Fan was dressed in traditional Thai costume and stood atop a float fashioned from a tuk-tuk decorated with flowers.