Miss China Wins Miss World Pageant in China... Again...

Now that I come to think about, I realize that I should have known better than to actually believe that our own Queenierich Rehman – the beat-boxing beauty queen – stood a chance of winning the 2012 Miss World Pageant. I mean, because the pageant was held in China!

In 2007, I thought it odd that Miss China would win the pageant for the first time ever on home soil. The pageant was held in Sanya in the People’s Republic and when the name of Ms. China Zhang Zilin was announced as the winner, my instant reaction was – like – you gotta be kidding me!

That seemed as rigged a decision as a panel of judges could make. Whatever happened to propriety?

In 1974, when the Miss Universe pageant came to the Folk Arts Theatre after Margie Moran had won the title in Athens the year before, it was more or less taken for granted that Guadalupe Sanchez’s winning the Miss Philippines’ title to represent the country in the pageant was something of a kiss of death.

I mean, we were the hosts; the outgoing Miss Universe was ours; and so for the Miss Philippines to win the Miss Universe title for the second straight year on home soil would not only have seemed like the height of inhospitality. It would also have seemed like the most obvious case of a hometown decision if there ever was one!

So everyone more or less knew that Sanchez would be politely sent through to the semi-final stage but that was as far as she would get. And that was exactly what happened... Mind, Sanchez was good enough to win the title, in my humble opinion.

The official line was that she had as good a chance as all the other representatives of winning the pageant. Like anyone believed it... But nobody took offence that she did not make it to the Top 5 because it was so the appropriate thing to happen.

This morning, I was checking one of the news sites and guess what headline immediately caught my eye? Yu Wenxia has been crowned Miss World. Yes, she is Miss China. The pageant was held last night in Orbos in Inner Mongolia, which is like a province of China.

Seriously? Yes, seriously.

Either this is a serious case of the organizers sucking up to the Chinese because they have hosted quite a few of the recent pageants or as bad a case of a hometown decision as one regularly hears about in boxing rings the world over.

Either way, I am declaring official disinterest in the Miss World pageant. What a farce!

For the record, I have nothing against Miss China winning the Miss World; and most especially if she deserves to. But look up the list of the pageant’s winners on Wikipedia and see for yourself that only China has won on home soil. If that is not odd, then I do not know what it is!

Strange as it may sound, I have nothing against Miss China winning in China, either. What I do take exception to is that the choice of the eventual winner is starting to reek of politics, which is disrespectful to the women who travel from around the world to participate.

But then again, I am no longer interested...

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