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| Username | Post |
| AT | Posted
on 18-Nov-03 12:56 PM
Maoism Moves Over for Miss World in China http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20031118/od_nm/china_missworld_dc |
| Thanda Beer | Posted
on 18-Nov-03 12:57 PM
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20031118/od_nm/china_missworld_dc |
| isolated freak | Posted
on 19-Nov-03 06:18 AM
Maoism Moves Over for Miss World in China Tue Nov 18,10:39 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! By John Ruwitch BEIJING (Reuters) - In China's Communist heyday, when Chairman Mao was at the helm, the only models anyone dared to celebrate were model factory workers and farmers. But Maoism has since been supplanted by an unswerving faith in market economics, and drab Mao suits by haute couture, and the country is now nuts for supermodels and beauty queens. Next month, China hosts the 2003 Miss World (news - web sites) competition, putting the world's most populous country officially on the beauty pageant map. The 110 beauties vying for the Miss World tiara flew in to Beijing Tuesday for a few days of photo ops on the Great Wall and in the Forbidden City ahead of the December 6 contest in Sanya, a resort on the semi-tropical island of Hainan. "Miss World in China. Why not?" a Chinese commentator under the pseudonym "100% Cantonese" said on an online message board. "I am going to beautiful tropical Hainan island for that event, I hope to meet one of those queens on the beach and invite her to a Cantonese dinner." Until recently, beauty pageants were banned in China as heretical expressions of bourgeois decadence. During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, women who used make-up could be branded counter-revolutionaries. Now, body image is a preoccupation of choice among urban youth. Fashion show catwalks have popped up in malls and in front of department stores nationwide. Billboards advertising beauty products and name-brand fashions are everywhere. Calling 2003 "the first pageant year in China," the Web site of the Communist Party's sober-minded mouthpiece, the People's Daily, said the Miss International competition would be held in China next year. "The craze in pageants is, on one hand, due to people's nature to pursue beauty, and social and economic development makes it possible for this pursuit and enriches its contents," the People's Daily Web site said. "On the other hand, under the market economy, pageants become a medium, and the beauty economy is prospering." It said 75 percent of online respondents to a questionnaire by popular Web sites Sina.com and Sohu.com supported China's participation in international pageants. Twenty-seven percent saw them as "a demand for the development of the market economy." The People's Daily Web site, www.people.com.cn, even said pageants were part of China's history, but stopped short of saying it invented them -- like gunpowder, compasses and noodles. "Beauty contests among common Chinese people originated from the prostitution circle. There was 'flower board' evaluating prostitutes dating back to the Xining period (1068-1077) of North Song Dynasty (960-1127)," it said. But after the Communists took power in 1949, pageants were banned and China did not enter the Miss World competition, which started two years later, until 2001. Even with official sanction, the transition to a beauty contest-friendly China has not been all smooth. Last year, police in southern China raided an auditorium during the Miss China contest saying the organizers did not have a permit. The pageant was quietly allowed to continue and the winner, Zhuo Ling, went on to become second runner-up at the Miss Universe (news - web sites) finals in Puerto Rico. |
| isolated freak | Posted
on 19-Nov-03 08:02 AM
Next month's World Beauty Competition is an awaited event in China. It will not only give China a new "image" in the international media, it will also help the Chinese prepare themselves on dealing with the international press for the upcoming mega events such as the Beijing Olympics 2008 and the Shanghai World Expo 2010. Surely, China is changing. There are no Iron Brigade Ladies of the 60s who thought being fashion conscious was counter revolutionary. Gone are those days of taking pride in poverty. There's no fear of another Cultural Revolution and "Spiritual Cleansing" campaign, thus allowing the 1 billion plus, Chinese people choose what they want to choose. Furthermore, with the privatization of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and the dismantling of Danwei --state’s allocation of jobs-- people are free to choose their careers and the amount of money they want to make. Today's Chinese cities--especially big cities like Shanghai and Beijing--are no different than any western or American cities. As China continues to open its market, one can find products of Revoln and Loreal to Levi's and Wrangler in the Chinese market. Forget fashion brands, even Dole's orange juice and Nestle's instant coffee are available everywhere in today's China. Stand at the Bund in Shanghai and look towards the Nanjing Lu. The Russian architecture reminds of the Chinese past while the billboards and corporate headquarters of HP, Canon, Microsoft, Epson, HSBC, Loreal, Revlon etc. across the river clearly depicts the Chinese present and the future. "Being rich is glorious", said the late leader Deng Xiaoping after seeing the impressive development of the 14 coastal cities--the first ones to be opened for Dirtect Foreign Investment-- in the early 80s and today's Chinese are working hard to get rich. A bicycle, a radio and a wrist watch is not what an avarage city youth dreams of. For today's youth, its an Audi, a state of the art CD/DVD player with built in Karoke and an Omega watch (if not a Rolex). Quite similar to the climax scene of Zhang Yi Mou's movie Zi Ji (to Live) in which the protagonist is heard telling his grand son- "Fly", which totally contardicts what he tells his son at the middle of the movie- "Ride a bike when you grow up". Yes, the Chinese have started to dream and as the tradition puts a huge emphasis on the word "da" (big), they dream big, and some of them are actually very close to realizing their big dreams. Thanks to the oppurtunities available. As China continues with its economic reforms policy, it seems like it is slowly regaining the Zhong Guo (Central Kingdom) pride it lost after its defeat in the Opium War and its forceful opening to the foreign invaders in the 19th century. China is no longer a weak and an isolated state. Today's China is a powerful, rich and dominating state- China as envisioned by the Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huang 2000 years ago . No one can bypass the Chinese opinion when it comes to the regional or gloabl economic, political or any other issues. A recent Foreign Affairs article states that, China's opinion in regional and world affairs will be an important factor in the days ahead. Here's a toast to the Chinese progress and to those who dare to dream- Gambei! |