She was just another poor farm girl who had come to the big city looking for a better life but was struggling to scratch out a living selling soup.
Then a modeling agency discovered Rojjana Phetkanha eating noodles at a food stall on a Bangkok street in 1994 and offered her a different career."On one side, I worried I was being solicited for prostitution," Phetkanha said. "But on the other, I decided to have a look."
It turned out to be a wise move.
After golfer Tiger Woods, whose mother is Thai, star model Phetkanha now has the best-known Thai face in the world. Generally known by her nickname, Yui, she recently became the first Asian model to become an emblem of the Chanel fashion house, one of four models chosen to represent the company's new Allure perfume.
Her high cheekbones, lush mouth and sexy eyes grace billboards, cosmetic counters and fashion magazines from Milan to Los Angeles. Yet her growing embodiment of the "Thai look" abroad is less appreciated at home, where she is thought to look, well, too Thai.
Phetkanha, 22, was a typical farm girl from the northeast, a parched, impoverished farming region. She helped her family work the rice paddies, taking care of her younger brother and the water buffaloes since she was 8 years old.
As a child, her biggest dream was to wear a pair of shoes to school rather than flip-flops. But her parents were poor and she left school at the legal minimum of sixth grade without ever owning a pair.
Like many northeastern women, who fill the ranks of Bangkok's maids, nannies, waitresses, prostitutes and low-wage factory hands, Phetkanha left her home province of Ubon Ratchathani in her teens to find her fortune in the big city.
She was luckier than most. Her subsequent success as Thailand's supermodel has reaped both cheers and sneers from her countrymen.
"I've heavily been criticized (for) my appearance," Phetkanha said. "Some even said that I looked more like a maid than a model."
Phetkanha stands a slender 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 112 pounds. She has some typical northeastern Thai features - a square face with high cheek bones, flat nose and dark brown skin.
Exotic to outsiders, such looks have traditionally been seen as too common, too simple in Thailand to be considered beautiful.
Traffic Jam, Phetkanha's modeling agency, said she earned $200,000 to $300,000 a year for the past two years and expects her 1997 earnings to run about $500,000. The one-morning shoot for Chanel was worth $72,000.