Sunday, December 17, 2023

A Tale of Two Pageants

 

This has been a funny year. I’ve known two women who got involved in Beauty Pageants. Like all good heterosexual men, I do like looking at good looking women and as a matter of disclosure, one of the women mentioned is my wife of 12-years and the other is a friend whom I’ve grown to care for.

The point of the pageants is, however, larger than the contestants themselves. There are sociological issues that become quite clear. Firstly, one of the best things about the two pageants is the fact that they were aimed at contestants over 35. Like it not, we are living in an aging society, where people are simply not rushing out to reproduce.

The main reason is simple – women have become educated to the point where they realise they have more value than just making babies. Hence, you have a growing number of women who prefer to be single and couples who choose not to have kids (or as my mother says “why have kids if you can’t bring them up in a world better than the one you were brought up in). End result – societies are becoming older and its good that we celebrate female beauty that goes beyond the obvious physical signs of fertility (big boobs, wide hips etc) and look at things like poise and elegance. Celebrating the beauty of older women is good for society. Teaching men to look for long term beauty for example, makes them understand that the “hot bods” they see on the beaches may not necessarily be the women they want to wake up next to in their later years.

 https://www.oprahdaily.com/beauty/a30980789/beauty-brands-women-over-50/

The second point is centred around the difference in approaches to the competition. The Vietnamese girl entered the competition with the determination to not only win but to use the competition to do things on a global stage. The Vietnamese girl not only went onto win the Singapore leg of the competition but got herself crowned as the global champion for that particular competition. To her, this competition was “important” not just for her but everyone around her.

 


 Determination and doing what it takes gets you places

The local girl, by contrast, didn’t treat the competition as a priority. When you arranged hairdressers for her, she was too busy. When you tried to get her input on things, she asked you to do for her, she threw a tantrum for disturbing her busy schedule. She did get placed in a talent segment but didn’t make it close to championship stage.

It’s not that the local girl is unattractive. She looked elegant and poised in the relevant promotional materials and there’s no reason why she could not have given the others a run for their money. However, that was not her goal and it showed. It was a distraction from her daily life.

If you look at it from a “lifestyle” choice perspective, there is no right or wrong. However, if you look at it from a “get things done” perspective, there’s a powerful point to be made. We are underestimating people from other parts of Asia because we think we are educated whereas they are hungry and willing to turn our trash in to their gold.

This is not to say that our people lack drive. Many of us work insane hours and are proud of pat ourselves on the back on the number of things we do in the office. I think of my intern who proudly talks about being a “Por Lampa” (Hokkien slang that roughly translates into ball carrier) person. Everyone I know who works with Singaporeans, says they we’re a hardworking bunch.

However, whilst we may be hardworking in functional in our own environment, we tend not to look at possibilities outside what we know and if anything, we psychologically collapse when things go off tangent. Even our ministers cannot function without a script. I’ll always remember watching Dr. Lee Boon Yang and Carl Bildt give speeches. Even the Ministry people had to admit that the Swedish minister outclassed ours in his delivery.

Look at the pageant as an example. Our local girls avoid pageants because they don’t want to get dissed online. The older ladies are usually in it for the fun than for anything else (I counted three familiar faces between pageants) and don’t really think of what they can milk from it.

The girls from elsewhere see things differently. The pageant is a stepping stone into something bigger. It’s their chance to make it big and so they go all out. In the first pageant won by the Vietnamese girl, it was very noticeable that the only other person offering competition was also Vietnamese. In the popularity segment, the two Vietnamese girls ran away with it.

So, yes, Singaporeans are smart and educated. However, we need to adapt our mindsets to the modern world. Opportunities that may not be in the conventional career path can opportunities for us. Staying with the familiar is not necessarily the way to go in a world where the familiar is closing in on us. Our foreign competition understands notions of “stayer” and “quitter” are outdated and the only thing that matters is what works best for you and the your family.

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Maira Gall