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.
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.
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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