#TBT: Inside the Battle to Become Miss China Universe

By That's Shanghai, July 6, 2017

Throwback Thursday (#TBT) is when we trawl through the That's archives for a work of dazzling genius written at some point in our past. We then republish it. On a Thursday.

By Meredith Yang

Emergency in the conference room! A girl just fainted, the same one as yesterday. The official butler for Miss Universe China – with the unlikely name Maybe - takes the call in the elevator. “She probably has MC. You know… menstrual cramps,” he sighs. “Get used to it.”

The unconscious contestant is sprawled over three adjoining chairs. Worried girls - in high heels, dangling earrings and impeccably applied makeup - hunch over her. Program organizers hurriedly send for a wheelchair as a puzzled English teacher looks on from the sidelines.

The scene is unfolding in the Kerry Hotel, where the latest crop of China’s most beautiful young things have been gathered for a month-long boot camp in preparation for the final of Miss Universe China 2012. Winners of regional competitions, the 21 finalists are here to hone their skills in everything from catwalking, cosmetics and English to how to eat Western food and gracefully field political inquiries. The winner will go on to compete at Donald Trump’s Miss Universe competition.

READ MORE: The People's Republic of Pageantry - The Rise, and Rise of Chinese Beauty Contests

Standing in a room full of impossibly gorgeous women is a lithe-limbed, porcelain-skinned reminder that only a lucky few hit the genetic jackpot. A fact that turns things interesting when everyone around is just as beautiful. “The girls literally wanted to kill each other last year,” says Yue-Sai Kan, Miss Universe China national director.

To help the young ladies temper that instinct, this year Yue-Sai has brought in Taiwanese motivational speaker and television host Danny Xia. “If you focus on the prize, your spirit will decline,” he tells the assembled throng. As well as teaching the girls how to believe in themselves, he emphasizes the importance of attitude and how the competition is a chance to learn, not simply a means to an end.

The girls hurriedly scribble down his aphorisms. They hold hands and close their eyes. Over half of them are in tears. Some turn to each other and laugh. Emotions had been running high; the pressure has been eased. Yue-Sai proudly looks on from the side, hoping that the girls are taking Xia’s words to heart. Interestingly, she casually interjects with another point: “Don’t be too Chinese.”

Beauty Bootcamp: Yue-Sai Kan of Miss China Universe
Yue-Sai Kan looks on as the ladies are put through their paces.

One hurdle to be overcome is that of receiving compliments. “What happens if someone compliments you?” Xia asks. The 21 beautiful women, who have experienced no shortage of praise, remain silent. “You say, ‘Thank you,’” Xia says. The women are visibly shocked. Receiving compliments? Acknowledging praise? Blasphemy.

In the traditional Chinese mind, to do so is tantamount to acknowledging that you are better than the person paying it. The girls have been taught to swat away compliments like they are nonsense. “Just receive the compliment,” Xia instructs them. In pairs, they practice. “I like you just the way you are,” one contestant happily pronounces to another.

Chinese modesty is not the only thing that needs to go if Miss China is to succeed at the Miss Universe competition. Talking with Yue-Sai later on, she is effusive on the ways in which Chinese mannerisms are unacceptable on the international stage.

“The Chinese have certain behaviors that are known to be very Chinese,” she says. “In the traditional sense, the Chinese are not supposed to show their teeth. So our job is to tell these girls to smile with their teeth. I mean, you’ve never seen Miss Universe smiling without their teeth, have you?

“The Chinese have a behavior that, when they laugh, they put their hands up to cover their mouth — we cannot have that. It looks pretty silly, doesn’t it? Can you imagine if someone asks her a question on stage and she puts her hand up when she’s laughing?”

More subtle details do not escape Yue-Sai either. “The way that the Chinese teach their kids to speak — the sound comes from the upper torso, from the throat. They teach them a soft way of answering questions. It’s not what we would like them to do. It’s really not right. We ask them to speak with a low voice.”

Even physical attributes are viewed from a modern, Western-influenced perspective. “Traditional Chinese beauty, for example, is to have a very small mouth, a yin tao xiao jie, a cherry mouth. Is that something you consider very beautiful anymore? I don’t think so.”

"The Chinese, when they laugh, they put their hands up to cover their mouth — we cannot have that. It looks silly, doesn't it?"
Yue-Sai believes a lack of exposure to Western culture can stifle Miss China’s chances. “If you take a 20-year-old Korean girl versus a 20-year-old Chinese girl, I can guarantee you that the Chinese girl knows a hell of a lot less about world culture than the Korean girl.

“I think Chinese women are a little too provincial. When it comes to being international, I think we are a little behind — there is a lot of popular culture we don’t know,” she continues. “We don’t really know a lot of singers from the outside world. We don’t know much about movies, or movie stars, unless they are highly controversial.

“We don’t know it because we don’t see it here. We don’t see any of the popular TV shows — Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives. I’m not endorsing them — I’m just saying that we’re not seeing them.

“When people mention Oprah Winfrey, a lot of Chinese don’t even know who the hell she is. I don’t mean that you have to know who she is, but you should know who she is! You know that our media is so controlled — we don’t see a lot of these things.”

The implied value of the ‘internationalization’ of the contestants is to develop a sense of individuality. Yue-Sai says she is keen to foster an independent spirit among the girls, and cites the fact they are taught to do their own makeup. “Miss Universe isn’t going to have makeup artists with her everywhere!”

Back in front of the class, she uses Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress as an example. “You have to learn how to express yourselves. Everyone knows Gaga because she is her own brand. You have to create your own brand. Your shape is your brand!”

Behind the rhetoric, however, a certain level of contradiction is at play. The truth is Miss China is not completely allowed to be herself. “When a contestant goes into the finals, she no longer has a name,” Yue-Sai later tells us. “Her name is Miss China. She is in essence, the embodiment of a Chinese woman.”

Being the embodiment of a Chinese woman isn’t something that comes easily, it would seem. A lot of homework is involved: drawing 20 pairs of eyebrows on paper; determining your face shape (triangle, diamond or square); analyzing your body shape; and learning how to make the most of a small bust (light colors and ruffles, if you’re interested…)

A Miss China Universe Contestant

Wake up call is at 6.40am. By 7am the girls are in the Kerry gym, ready for their 30-minute daily work-out sessions. “The girls are really weak, and they don’t want to gain muscle,” says Prince, one of three Miss China Universe personal trainers. “Our work out is more of a wake-up workout.

“That’s the difference between Chinese and Westerners,” he continues. “Western women want toned muscles. When I put the Miss China contestants through spinning class, one of them asked, ‘Is this going to make my calves bigger?’”

While they are weighed every day to ensure minimum weight gain, staff say the girls “eat quite a lot.” The butler, Maybe, is constantly asked to fetch midnight snacks. The anorexia and bulimia that plague the modeling world seem absent from this competition.

“Obviously you can’t be fat, but you still need to eat for energy,” says contest training manager Lydia, bringing a box of McDonald’s to the salon. The girls hungrily snatch burgers and fries as they receive their hair treatments. “The girls love McDonald’s,” she adds.

Whisked from one event to another, a typical day may involve three hours of makeup class, lunch, a catwalking class followed by speaking skills training, before finishing the day with a dance class. The contestants get an average of six hours of sleep a night. The schedule runs seven days a week.

"The girls literally wanted to kill each other last year."
Observing it all, it becomes clear there is truth to the cliché that it takes more than just a pretty face to win a beauty pageant. “I remember we sent current Miss China Universe Luo Zilin to meet with the Chinese delegation at the United Nations in order to learn how to answer very tough questions, like ‘What do you think of Taiwanese independence?’ ‘What about Tibet?’ ‘What do you think of the One-Child Policy?’” says Yue-Sai. “You have to train them like diplomats.”

This is all, of course, assuming a minimum physical and aesthetic standard. “At the end of the day it’s a beauty pageant,” says Yue-Sai, as candid as ever. “You cannot think that an ugly girl is going to become Miss Universe — it’s just not possible to think that way.”

So what do the contestants think of the training, and its Western slant? “It’s not just about being Western,” says Miss Hainan. “It is just like if people were to come to China. You would learn about China, right?”

As for their personal hopes and aspirations, it’s heartening to hear that contestants have dreams beyond Miss China and world peace. One girl wants to own a bookshop. Another wants a garden, complete with chickens and dogs. They all see marriage and kids as a prospect somewhere down the line.

For now, asked about the competition and they are pretty much unanimous: “It is a world class opportunity.”

This article first appeared in the September 2012 issue of That's Shanghai.

https://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/post/19715/tbt-inside-the-battle-to-become-miss-china-universe