Many people ask me whether I will be joining any more pageants in near future. My answer is NO!
The reason is simple – I am not going to win anymore. I have done enough pageants and I have won some and lost some. Taking part in pageants have been the centre of my being since I graduated from university.
When I returned from UK with my degree, I took the opportunity to realise my childhood dream. I did well in my first pageant, and gradually gained more confident for my next pageant. To my surprise, I emerge as the national winner in my second pageant and I performed well in two of my international pageants, in Korea and China.
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I took a long break from the pageant industry, after my two international pageants and briefly started my professional career. Taking part in the country's two premier national pageants have shown me that brains and beauty is not enough. I must admit that I took part in them not only with the hope to win but also to look at them as an anthropologist – a social study.
The following are the conclusions from my in-depth study over the past three years.
1)Winning ONCE means losing forever
Be warned that having being a winner in another pageant is almost a sure guarantee that one will not win again. Mainly due to pageant organisers need a BIMBO for the next one year, and make sure these newly crowned queens will follow all the orders from management.
Past winners of other pageants may have widen up to such tactics and may not play ball with them. Experience and qualification not wanted by pageant organisers. That is why winning once means losing forever!
2)Rule No 1 does not apply if you have connections
Although being a past winner is a handicap, some girls use it to their full advantage. To my horror, we girls are expected to do MORE – a lot more. If you can make the chaperons and the video-graphers to be your friends; they will give you more air-time and connections with the key people during the pageant.
Let's put it this way, if your face is constantly shown at every press conference through pictures and video clips, this will definitely give the perception that “that girl must be good". The most important connection is access to the organizers. A well placed word by the organizer will turn a contestant into a favorite.
Having the right connection in the pageant is crucial, even if you have fake boobs, fake nose, and caught smoking during the pageant, all will be forgiven simply because having the RIGHT CONNECTION is the most important rule!
3)Ability to help the organisers to make money
Contestants must not only learn to dance, sing or even do the catwalk (a lot of past winners do not know how to sway their hips) but must also become a salesgirl. To my surprise, I needed to meet certain sales quotas for selling tables during the finals; in order to be qualified to be the crown owner. Being exposed to all these incidents, I started to wonder winners are beauty queens or queens of sale!
4)Are you a sucker
Being an apple or shoe polisher is a skill all hopeful winners must have. You need to suck up to chaperons, bells boys and all the way up the hierarchy of the pageant organization.
Having one's own mind is definitely not acceptable. If one does not give in to their manipulation or demands, you will be considered the girl with an attitude problem! Hence, they will bad mouth about you in front of the judges. That is not all! While judges are told to give extra points for personality, to pageant organizers there is a fine line between personality and bad attitude.
Some contestants, who are opinionated or seldom talk, will be perceived as contestant with attitude problem. See my previous blog “How not to win a pageant” and you will get a clearer picture. So, in order to be a winner, you also have to be a sucker.
5)Helps if daddy/mummy/ boyfriends are somebody
Undoubtedly, you stand a VERY good chance if have somebody close to you who has some connections with the pageant organizers. Regardless of your physical appearance or you did pretty bad in the finals, you will still emerged as the grand winner simply because pageants are all about connections.
If this is not the pageant reality, why there are tons of criticism on internet about the past pageant winners perform foolishly in the international beauty pageants? Ranging from their vital statistics to their speaking ability? Remember Miss Singapore?
6)How are your bed manners?
I have never seen it happen but after what has happened in the past three years, it must be true. Some judges and girls are just too close. At the start of the competition they are strangers but by the final night, some girls are like the judges' close friends if not more.
There is always one question appear on anybody who encounter situation like this, “Since when she is so close to this person? There must be something that I am not aware of!”
The above points that I have just mentioned is just a small fraction out of the big pageant picture. However, this may not happen to every pageant and definitely case to case basis. Pageants are never a fair game. Pageant in the modern context is just like any political game than a beauty conpetition. You need more than the physical beauty to win the competition. The cliché 'beauty with brains' alone does not necessarily work. Connection is everything in the pageant game!
Please follow my next blog on “The Correlation between Plastic Surgery and Beauty Pageant”
