Weekly Travel Feature

How to Judge a Beauty Contest in Asia

Prepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International

No matter where you travel in Asia you are certain to run into a beauty contest
of one sort or another. It could be an elephant round up in Surin in Thailand with the reigning queen riding the lead elephant. Then the Flower Orchid Festival has its queen as well as the Miss Umbrella Queen. And each country in Southeast Asia has its queen––Miss Thailand, Miss Singapore, Miss Philippines and so it goes. The grandest one of all, of course, is the Miss Southeast Asia because she becomes the Miss Universe contestant.

Whichever one it might be, it will be worth watching. Here’s a chance to learn a thing or two about cultural awareness. And no one can deny, a beautiful girl is one who takes your breath away. Attend a Miss Thailand contest and you’re certain to end up short of breath.

Over the years I have attended a few of these contests, between gasps for air, but what comes to mind concerns the judging. How objective can a judge really be? Is he truly making an unbiased choice? How "universal" anyway is the Miss Thailand, or the Miss Universe contest? I started thinking about this and remembered an incident that happened to me some 15 years ago, far up the Rejang River in Sarawak, Kalimantan, formerly known as Borneo.

I was waiting for the trading boat, stretched out on the verandah of a longhouse, half dozing, when behind me I could hear the Iban women giggling. They were looking at a copy of my National Geographic. What was so funny?

It was a page of advertisement with a photograph of a very sleek New York fashion model. She wore her hair back, with her eyes made up with blue shadow. She held a cigarette in a slender holder, and her fingers were finely manicured. She was leaning over the fender of a shiny sports car. I can't remember what she was advertising, but I do remember the model.

The Iban women were amused. They studied the model in great detail. I felt rather proud they were admiring a woman of my world, but then I discovered it was not admiration. They had ridicule for the model.

To them she was everything a woman should not be. What decent lady would paint her lips and eyes? And smoke a cigarette?

I'm afraid the saying 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' is true. Are not Iban men justified in judging beauty within their own society? Unfortunately Miss Borneo 2009 would not receive many votes in Bangkok and Hong Kong, unless the judges were also from her homeland, which is not likely.

Also, our concept of beauty changes from day to day. What we consider beautiful at present may not apply a few years hence. Think about it! I remember growing up in China after the war. A Chinese beauty then wore only silk gowns and had bangs, a whitewashed face and gold teeth. When she smiled all you saw was gold. Today in China the women are quite stylish.

Nor was it long ago that a Malay girl who was about to marry had to have her teeth ground down and then stained black. (Young girls on Bali still go through the teeth-filing ceremony.) Also, staining women's teeth was not confined to Southeast Asia. If we are to believe the Japanese prints, geisha girls a hundred years ago followed a similar custom.

But one doesn't have to delve into the past to discover the meaning of beauty. I can imagine the Ibans in their longhouses in Borneo selecting one of their women to represent them in a Miss Universe contest. Iban women here continue to elongate their ears until their earlobes reach down to their shoulders. They also shave their eyebrows and practice walking tippy-toed.

In places like New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, women who want to be fashionable have their torsos tattooed with intricate designs. Fortunately the Maori women on New Zealand have given up the custom of tattooing their lips and chins, although in some Maori settlements a few older women can still be seen with these unbecoming beauty marks. And now I'm being prejudiced by saying “unbecoming.” To Maori men they must certainly have been marks of beauty.

Who could ever imagine a Miss Universe with the physique of a sumo wrestler? There are many societies who grade their women on a poundage scale. The Arabs are one. I once went to a belly dance in Istanbul. The audience was mainly of Turkish sailors who became quite boisterous when a dancer appeared. The bigger and heavier they were, the better they liked them. One young and rather lithe woman was shooed off the stage.

Nor are the Polynesians of the Pacific much different. There are some people who will argue that the contrary is true. They are certain to mention those lithe Tahitian girls doing a fiery tamure dance to the rhythm of shark-skin drums. The truth is, those dancers are merely export models. Among the real Polynesians, the huge, blubbery woman who leaps up and does a wild dance is the one who captures the hearts of the locals. It is not so surprising however when one remembers that at one time all Polynesian royalty were forbidden to exert themselves at all. Not only were they carried about from place to place, but they were hand-fed by their subjects. In fact, for anyone of royal blood to touch the food they ate was taboo. And the more weight they gained, the more pride the people had in their reigning aristocracy. In Samoa today there is hardly a woman who walks down a street in Pago Pago or Apia who doesn't weigh 90 kilos or more. It would cost the Miss Universe Committee double to bring them to a contest. They couldn't fit into one seat on an aircraft.

One mistake we make, I believe, in judging a woman's beauty is to try to put her into a light where she doesn't belong. I've seen it happen so often. I had a Swiss friend who was engaged to a Balinese woman. He invited me to attend their wedding on Bali. I went a week before the ceremony and first saw the woman in her village surroundings. She was coming up a steep hill carrying a water cask on her head, along with a dozen other young maidens. I could see why my friend had fallen in love with her. She was absolutely lovely.

Their wedding was traditionally Balinese. I had never seen a young bride look so radiant. She was, of course, dressed in her Balinese wedding costume. My friend too was dressed in native costume, and they both had to go through a tooth-filing ceremony, although it was more symbolic than anything.

A few years passed before I saw them again. They were living in a flat in Bangkok. My Swiss friend had made every attempt possible to transform his lovely wife into a Westerner. He spared no cost on her clothes, but somehow they didn't suit her. She was trying to be someone she wasn't, and at great loss to her charming beauty.

Maybe what the world needs is a revised Miss Universe contest judged by ethnic rules. Should not the contestants be from all the diverse groups the world over? The problem, of course, would be setting up standard rules for the judges to follow. But then what would the judges do with a Malaysian beauty who refused to pose in a bathing suit, or a Muslim girl from the Middle East who wouldn't remove her veil? It could present some rather peculiar difficulties.

But then, all Asian women are beautiful, each in her own way.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Dear Mr. Stephens, Your readers, elephant lovers anyway, may be interested to know that the Anantara Elephant Camp has a new baby elephant, Baby Raimon (a girl). We celebrated in style with all her elephant friends, and a few human ones too, over a fruit buffet! Baby Raimon is a perfect example of the work that is being carried out at the elephant camp. Raimon’s mum came to the camp about 18 months ago after a pretty hard life begging on the streets. We learnt some time later that she was pregnant and Raimon was born on a rainy monsoon night last summer. In those early days we had to build a little ladder for her to be able to successfully suckle her long-legged mum!

Raimon will not have to experience the hardships that her mum did due to the kindness of Anantara guests and our charity the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation. The Anantara Elephant Camp now has 31 elephants in residence! Tell your readers to come and meet Baby Raimon.

Marion Walsh, Public Relations, Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas|.

Dear Marion, Thank you for your e-mail. I will make a note of this to our readers. ––HS

Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)

Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited.