Last month I saw a man reading the Financial Times Weekend. On the frontpage was a beautiful Chinese Miss. The title of the article was ‘The china doll revolution’. After I asked him if I could see the article he said I could have the paper. The article was about the first annual Miss Artificial Beauty contest, held in China on december 18, 2004. “The beauty pageant, once the west’s symbol of oppression of women, has become the east’s champion of opportunity”, writes Alexandra Harney. It was a very interesting story (although a bit late?) about the contestants -and their motivations- of this first plastic surgery beauty pageant. I wanted to post about it here, but forgot. Now I have found the article online, so you can read it yourself.
Pictured above is 22-year-old Chinese Feng Qian, the winner of the contest. Reuters quoted her as saying “I couldn’t have done it without my plastic surgeon.”Well, she couldn’t have entered the competition without her plastic surgeon: during the application process all contestants had to submit documents proving that they were indeed ‘artificial beauties’. There also was a transsexual contestant and a 62-year-old Miss. Normally I would say: only in Japan, but I guess the world is changing rapidly…
Other articles about the pageant (with more photo’s) can be found at BBC News and ChinaDaily. Many photo’s of the competiton can be found on this Chinese site (extremely slow!).
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The chin job is a bit more than I’d like, but overall I think this girl looks very good. And some of the other girls look remarkably natural (including the transexual!).
was there a b4 picture?
Nope.
and if there was, it was destroyed 😉
beauty contest being a “west’s symbol of oppression of women”? PC nonsense.
i don’t care about those contests as i find them boring & most of the participants not particularly attractive (Miss USA is always a dog), but i would never make them into “symbols of oppression”.
Nik2, I am not sure what you are talking about because beauty contests are very popular in China. I have seen quite a few of them on Chinese television.
I think this Miss Artificial is a bit over the top but is probably not too far from the truth of many other beauty pageants where many of the contestants get some form of cosmetic surgery.
I think he is referring to the quote from Alexandra Harney, the writer of the article which started the idea for this posting: “The beauty pageant, once the west’s symbol of oppression of women, has become the east’s champion of opportunity”.
thanks Robin. that was my point exactly. if women were “oppressed” by such contests, they would not flock to participate.
in US, a winner gets a hefty check for various endorsements, in south america winners are almost eligible for presidency. i’m sure asian winners are compensated/rewarded handsomely too. as they should be…
The first part of that quote Alexandra Harney was merely historical and probably was at its height during the Cultural Revolution but does not apply to the China of today which is why I questioned what Nik2 wrote implying that there still remains an anti-Western bias.
I don’t think it really had to do with traditional PC nonsense as prominent feminist’s argued at one time when they protested wearing outfits made out of raw meat. The interpretation of “oppression of women” may actually be closer to the author’s viewpoint than the Chinese communist (Maoist) viewpoint which was more likely just against anything considered Western. I guess the author felt what she wrote made for a stronger opening. A country that once routinely bound the feet of women doesn’t have a lot of clout when accusing other cultures/countries of oppressing women.