The band was playing Cocaine as the small entourage entered but it was highly doubtful any of them would ever touch the stuff: these were international representatives of China, “athletes” in a land of contradictions, competing for fresh spoils.
After years of half-organized humiliations, the country is determined to seize an unusual new prize this September: Miss Universe, a controversial trophy offered by a US organization headed by the failed Presidential candidate and China-basher, Donald Trump.
The stiffly embossed invitations to the after-party offered the opportunity to “mingle with stars, celebrities and Beijing’s elite” but, despite the dozens desperate for a moment, or ideally a picture, next to one, none of those at the centre of this civilized scrum were remotely famous (yet). They are the finalists from this year’s Miss Universe China – the grand pageant, an impressively well-organized, if somewhat dull, event in Beijing’s Mastercard Center, had just finished.
For a country that describes itself as traditional and conservative, China has beauty contests seemingly every month: Miss World is now regularly held each year in Sanya, seaside city on the island province of Hainan, also home to the local government’s Bikini Beauty Contest every July. Shanghai has its Miss Bikini of The Universe contest, while Chengdu is due to host this year’s Miss International Beauty Pageant. And there are dozens of other flesh parades at a lesser-known provincial venues . Some are corrupt, casting-couch affairs, organized for nefarious reasons – as PR for a provincial official’s new (illegal) golf course, in the case of one described to me last year, in unglamorous Shanxi Province.
Others are not so welcome: Mr Gay China was treated to an embarrassing police raid in front of world media in 2009 and the competition hasn’t been heard from since.
But if televised extravaganzas such as the Beijing Olympics are an example of how the state is able to orchestrate world-class events to its exact specifications, this year’s Miss Universe can be viewed as the private sector’s ambition to do just the same, albeit with government approval, on a smaller scale, and with a blizzard of confetti replacing climactic fireworks.
The local cast list at Miss Universe China 2011 was eclectic, unusual and – as the invitation curtly reminded – “elite.” We had judge Tony Li, both flamboyant TV star and owner of the hair salon chain Tony Studios, non-coincidentally one of the sponsors. There, prowling the cocktail circuit like Steppenwolf, was judge Zhang Huan, a performance artist who divides his time between New York and Shanghai. Earlier, we saw arrive on the red carpet the tall, slender supermodel known simply as Du Juan, Vogue’s first Asian cover star.
Leading them all was Miss Universe’s National Director, Yue-Sai Kan, (or Kan Yue-Sai), the cosmetics queen of China, who helped changed the faces of Chinese women in the 1980s by introducing them to make-up – her make-up, Yue-Sai Cosmetics, to be precise. After 1989, or so the story goes, the government made her pretty much responsible for turning women away from the drably natural look of the Maoist era and start getting them in front of their vanity units. She is one of several women who are sometimes tritely called “China’s Oprah Winfrey.”
Lingering at the outskirts were ageing members of the Beijing’s Eurotrash contingent. The Madoff lookalikes watched proceedings with much younger companions – who were they, one wondered, and, in a city where smog forever eclipses the sun, where did they get their magnificent tans?
From France, perhaps: Chateaux Margaux, the prestige French label that now sees its luxury bottles knocked down and knocked off by China’s emergent upper-middle classes, had put their general manager, Paul Pontalier, at Miss Universe’s disposal. Thanking the contestants and describing his initial perplexity at Margaux being called a “feminine wine,” Pontalier claimed he now finally understood the appellation.
“It’s about beauty, elegance, subtlety, sensuality, charm… and power… we must never forget how powerfulthese women are,” uttered Pontalier, who’d flown in from Paris that day to offer a scene of Gallic gratitude that veered close to parody. “This is the result of gifts from nature… from genes.”
“These women are dangerous!” exclaimed Kan in response.
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Prior to the foundation of the People’s Republic, private ‘beauty contests’ took place in brothels – or for the benefit of emperors – on a regular basis. Mao’s takeover in 1949 initially seemed quite a positive thing, at least for women’s civil rights. Prostitution was outlawed, make-up and other bourgeoisie influences were condemned as unrevolutionary and women went to work next to men in the factories. Both genders were clad in the sexless “Mao suits” that characterized the period up until 1978 – women even sewed patches on their clothes to make them look older.
After Deng’s reforms, the old vices and new iniquities reappeared almost immediately. Prostitution returned with a vengeance – as well as its more innocent counterparts. “In fact, beauty contests in China during the 1980s were even more popularized than today,” said Fang Gang, Director of the Institute of Sexuality and Gender Studies at the Beijing Forestry University and author of Beauty Contests in China.
Initially, China’s Confucian streak revolted against the phenomenon. Leading the charge were the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), who pressured lawmakers to uphold the country’s traditional values, forbid any official involvement and limit media reporting on them. In 1988, Beijing Television attempted to hold the first televised contest, which was eventually cancelled, and as late as 2002, police shut down a bathing-suit pageant in southern China mid-way through, saying it was against ‘regulations.’
But by then, the horse had long bolted the stable and was, in fact, in the process of being groomed for international success. The state first got involved in 1991, sending a contestant to the Elite Model Look contest. The reason was perfectly simple: the government was persuaded it would boost the country’s textile and fashion industry. “The power behind [them] is still economic benefit,” Fang said. “A beauty contest is fundamentally a business event – just look at the amount of sponsorships it claims.”
The real turning point, though, was in 2003, when the State Tourism Administration and the Foreign Ministry approved the first government-sponsored contest. It was held, ironically enough, in Shandong Province – the birthplace of Confucius. It was also China’s first Miss Universe. That year, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported on the growing popularity of beauty pageants, quoting Li Fangran, a female clerk at Beijing Agricultural Bank, saying ”Showing your beauty and slim figure in public is the freedom and right of women. It has nothing to do with moral standards.”
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Miss Universe is not a competition in the usual sense: a clash between rival abilities. It’s more a spot-the-difference contest, where the girl who makes one wins. Think of a Miss California heat (the audience at the final didn’t have to: a soft-focus montage of weeping, white Misses Universe, recalling what seemed a bygone era, was screened intermittently throughout) and the parade of near-identikit blondes, brunettes and in-betweens, all boasting the same sunkissed skin and gleaming fixed smiles. Then remove those differences.
“They all look the same,” said Emma, who accompanied me with camera, when asked who she favored. Admittedly, this was the bikini round, where everyone wore blue and looked tall, skinny and dazzlingly similar. Then again, we also were in the front row, which afforded the best possible viewing, as well as frathouse-style commentary from a trio of suited, white businessmen behind (“She’s such a babe,” observed the CEO of the Chinese arm of a major American investment bank. “That’s the one with the ass,” his friend vouchsafed).
The banker redefined his stance after he asked for Emma’s number, then clocked her press badge. “Don’t you think this is utterly degrading to women?” he suddenly wondered, before requesting anonymity. It was a question I later put to Madam Kan, to near-disastrous effect.
Back then, though, my thoughts were with one of the models, Aliya, a 21-year-old from Xinjiang Province studying preventative medicine at Fudan University, who I’d spoken to earlier that week. Articulate and thoughtful, Aliya was not particularly concerned about actually winning (“It’s a game for me. I try… but the result isn’t very important,” she shrugged) and defied the feminist cliché of the docile beauty contestant, unwitting dupe to the male gaze.
Aliya is also a Uyghur, a Muslim in a country that, despite (often literally) boasting 56 ethnic nationalities, essentially views itself as both atheist and Han. “Most Muslims don’t want girls to join these competitions,” she started by saying. That’s a serious understatement: Islamic fundamentalists literally ran riot before the Miss World finals in 2002 in Nigeria, leaving 200 dead and 500 injured. “It’s a big problem for me… I don’t want to talk about it,” she admitted.
I was rooting for Aliya partly because I’d met her, partly because I actually recognized her on stage and partly because, as an ethnic minority, she would be an underdog, despite her looks. Beauty contests are intrinsically linked to national, ethnic and, particularly, gender identity. Such political demarcations behind images of feminine beauty are undeniable when China protests and meddles in events such as Miss Tibet and Miss Taiwan. I doubted Aliya would be able to escape the ‘taint’ of her troubled province.
“I didn’t want to join at first because, maybe, they [the judges, presumably] don’t think I’m like Chinese because I’m a minority… but why can’t I represent my country? I am part of it and I am a different look. I can represent a different Chinese girl.” Despite her noble intentions, Aliya didn’t place in the top ten, though when I mention her name to Yue-Sai Kan, she enthused about her in the same rapturous terms she referred to all the others (“delicious, like an ice cream!” was one memorable phrase).
So what were “they” looking for exactly? Zhang Huan, the artist cum judge, dresses with the kind of confidence that only comes from success (or self-delusion), like a chic migrant worker, or Brother Sharp, the hobo who became a fashion icon in China after his picture was posted online last year. Zhang’s ideal was “a ‘post-natural… combination of future and nature [where] nature, umm, refers to the concept of inner beauty… a beautiful person should have an unsophisticated sort of quality, which should be futuristic at the same time, so that it surpasses the traditional concept of simplicity” – all of which makes you wonder what Zhang was doing acting as a judge for Miss Universe.
How did he expect anyone to measure up to this? “I didn’t find a beauty that met my standard today,” he sighed. Could anyone, though? “Oh, I’ve never thought about that actually… although I’m sure there must be someone!”
Luo Zilin, China’s Miss Universe entrant, after watching a surgical operation in Sao Paolo – image by Emma Zhang
Whoever that someone was, China won’t be sending her to the final. Zhang seemed fairly disappointed at the board’s chosen winner, Luo Zilin, who “cannot represent Chinese women today… she’s too Westernized, her body, her feeling, her temperament, it’s all too Westernized.”
As for China’s dreams of winning this year: “No chance.”
Judge and Artist Zhang Huan with Miss Universe Entrant – image by Emma Zhang
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Back in 2003, many were worried about the effect beauty contests would have on society; there were particular fears that women would turn to plastic surgery, lengthening legs and widening eyes, in order to achieve Western beauty ideals. These worries turned out to be correct: in 2004, China saw its first Miss Plastic Surgery competition, which requires a doctor’s certificate proving the work – the winner gets 50,000 Yuan ($6,000).
But today, Director Kan thinks Chinese women have mostly caught up with their peers in the West and are less distinguishable from them in almost every way, barring education.“Today’s Chinese girls… in many ways are very much like a woman in Hong Kong, Taiwan or, in some instances, America even, because they’ve been exposed to the same thing,” she claimed. “A lot of them wear almost the same clothes… listen to the same music… but actually, when you really get down a little bit, they’re actually are lacking a lot of the world view.”
A woman of fame and influence, Kan had nevertheless been courteous enough to keep me waiting only half an hour to speak to her. Fresh from her interviews with Japanese media, she obligingly retold the story, for what must be the thousandth time, of how she built her brand like it’s a fresh tale for her.
Despite her personal success story, though, the balance of power between the sexes in China remains almost institutionalized, especially in rural areas. In Wuhan, Hubei province in June, another, creepier type of beauty contest was taking place, one that neatly formalized this arrangement. Wealthy, single businessmen paid 99,999 yuan (US$15,435) for a day-long “dating convention” to meet potential girlfriends. The latter’s entry fee simply required they be good looking – most women chose to wear swimsuits. The men wore suits. Organizers didn’t bother to defend that, arguing the women were judging the men simply by their material prospects and not their looks.
So beauty, like athleticism or a high net worth, simply becomes something to be traded. “It’s like the Olympics,” said Miss Kan of her competition. “Course it is! How many things [do] you know where the contestant can actually wear the name of Miss China, with a crown. How many competitions are there on a recent international scale? Is there any difference?”
She argued that beauty contests are no different to athletics events (even if the event seems to be show jumping). If athletes are celebrated by virtue of their physical prowess – selling their bodies to sport, so to speak – why should her stable of starlets be treated any differently?
In order to prepare what she referred to as her “athletes” for the task, all 32 were sent to an intensive training course – “Booty Camp,” as a friend neatly put it – where, under Kan’s oversight, they woke at 7am and worked till 11pm, learning the rigors of deportment, spoken English, posing and applying cosmetics (“Their make-up was perfect – they all used Yue-Sai cosmetics!” Kan noted delightedly).
Yue Sai Kan and Consort – image by Emma Zhang
The determination to regain face for the country, after so many years of failures is evident. The competition’s slogan for this year patriotically proclaims “Celebrating Chinese women, bringing glory to China,” though, tellingly, only the first part has been translated to English. If the winner goes onto win the worldwide final in September, it will be like adding another medal to China’s Olympics collection.
“Like if an athlete gets a gold medal, what’s so bad about that? She’s an athlete too, we train her like a horse… what’s so demeaning about that?” The defensive manner was the result of a fairly innocent question posed earlier, when, after some preamble, I asked how she would have replied to the aforementioned banker, who said the contest was degrading.
The atmosphere got slightly less cozy. “Who said that?” she demanded. “I don’t know how this idiot could have said something like that!” She went on to list the charitable achievements of Rio Mori, the Japanese winner of Miss Universe 2007 who was one of this year’s judges in China and Petra Nemcova, another judge and model, whose experience of the 2004 Asian tsunami inspired her to establish children’s charity the Happy Hearst Trust, concluding, “There may be other events that are demeaning to women but I guarantee you, that night, I would say that 99% of people would say we elevate women to a very high point.”
Zhang Huan also didn’t think the image on display was anything but positive for his country: “I think it represented the modern Chinese people’s hopes and dreams of women, especially young women. I think it did.”
“These beauty contests are reflections of the traditional societal gender system,” observed the expert, Fang. “Whatever pretty name is used, they can’t cover their nature of treating women as commodities to consume and enjoy.”
The accusation didn’t go away and it seemed surprising, given the cheesy reputation of Miss Universe, now run since 2002 by Trump, that it should have offended Kan so much. Was her indignation merely a front – or are Chinese values of femininity (and feminism) simply different?
Probably the two prevailing stereotypes of Chinese woman – in the West, at least – are the “dragon lady,” the kind of no-nonsense power madam recently given lease of life by the “Tiger Mother” controversy, and the courtesan, once epitomized by Suzy Wong and the culture of the concubine. Kan was certainly capable of breathing a little fire (“That man deserves to be punched!”) but was otherwise very amiable. Her contestants may have smiled passively on stage but, as the case of Aliya from Xinjiang showed, most were perfectly capable of holding their own off it.
Perhaps one difference is a sense of pragmatism over lofty idealism. “There are lots of so-called feminist women who don’t do anything,” said Kan scornfully. “Yet Miss Universe this year raised something like… 68 million dollars for [good causes]… what’s wrong with that?”
Is Kan a feminist herself? “Yes, but… in a different kind of sense. Everything I have done is pioneering and my success did not come because… my father is some kind of Chinese leader… everything came from zero. But I believe women should be feminine.” Here she referred to a kind of traditional, Confucian ideal instilled by her mother, where women behave demurely, deferring perhaps in public but getting things done privately –like building up a business empire or running global brands like Miss Universe.
“That’s why that comment was very offensive to me and it is not even correct,” Kan said, still slightly fuming as we finished up. “From the get-go, that is the last thing we had in mind… How can we celebrate Chinese women if we demean Chinese women?”
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On the subject of pragmatism and material values: Miss Universe is similar to one of those quiz shows where nobody goes home empty-handed. 31 of the contestants may not make it to Sao Paolo, Brazil for the big autumn final but they still got plenty of prizes, such as cameras, shoes, clothing, make-up (no prizes for guessing whose), hi-fi equipment, dental treatment and English lessons. Include the holiday in Beijing and whirlwind of promotions and it’s not such a bad return for a girl from the provinces, for a bit of bikini modeling.
The winner, Luo Zilin, also receives a year-long contract with YSK Promotions, which includes a “personal chaperone,” plus the trip to Brazil and she gets to keep her LukFook crown, valued (by the jeweler) at 2.8 million yuan (just under $450,000).
We also got to keep a little something. Back at home, I unpacked the party’s goodie bag. Among the usual promotional materials (a heavy brochure from Mercedes went straight for recycling) were a large bottle of expensive foreign perfume, some lingerie, a free dental check-up at a top Beijing clinic and clothes vouchers for a women’s boutique. Altogether, not a bad haul – especially if you’re a woman. But that’s what Miss Universe is supposed to be about: beauty as commodity, packaged and exported and thoroughly modern.
“It’s definitely not progressive,” argued gender expert Fang. “But I wouldn’t say it’s devolving either, because there is just no ‘progressive’ sex equality or sex recognition [in China]. I would say it’s a reflection of diversity. Personally, I think even something that is academically criticised should be able to exist too. Everyone has the right to choose his or her own lifestyle, which includes being appreciated, consumed or even purchased.”