Vietnam Town

After the international contest ended last month,Tho, and many others were left wondering what image the pageant conveyed exactly. These contests play host to an unusually large number of unfortunate incidents.

At the gala dinner that wrapped up the event, a journalist was bombarded with abuse and received a viscous punch that left him with a bloody nose courtesy of the party’s sponsor, simply because he took photos of the contestants without approval. The attack happened right in front of international guests and cultural ambassadors from all over the world.

The attacker justified himself by the fact that his family had paid for the entire event. He later apologised to the journalist but the damage was already done.

The number of beauty pageants are on the rise, and in 2007 alone, there were 11. The first half of this year witnessed five contests and three more are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Perhaps this influx of beauty contests would be more welcomed if they met the expectations of the audience. But many end up disappointing not only the audience, but art performance managers and jury members as well.

"A lack of professionalism in organising beauty contests, and a lack of awareness of the importance of these events among candidates and organisers have created a negative impression in most people’s minds," said Nguyen Thi Hoa Binh, head of the Ha Noi College of Arts.

Le Ngoc Cuong, head of the Art and Performance Department of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism agreed, saying that the public were getting bored of these insipid parades of petulant pageantry.

"The largest problem beauty contests face is that whatever they’re called, they all end up being pretty much the same old boring tripe. Nothing but inexperienced organisers lacking vision or innovation," said Cuong.

According to Cat Vu, who was a jury member in Miss Martial Arts in Binh Dinh Province this past July, and in Miss Viet Nam Tourism 2008, many candidates were simply not up to scratch.

"The Miss Martial Arts Contest set out the following criteria for the winner: she must not only be talented in martial arts, but have abundant knowledge of the world of martial arts and be breathtakingly beautiful to boot. Let’s just say it was hard for us jury members to choose a winner and I don’t mean that in a good way" said Vu.

"Many candidates rush to learn a performance in two or three months before the contest. Most of them either lack knowledge, have little preparation, or both. And though we were not truly satisfied, we still had to crown a winner. It was a contest after all," she added.

Meanwhile, though most agree Miss Viet Nam Tourism showcased a larger selection of beauties, the audience was equally unimpressed. The criteria was quite high: the winners, apart from being of course beautiful, needed to speak fluent English and have a deep knowledge of the nation’s tourism.

"However, after meeting the candidates who made it through, it soon became clear to us jury members that we’d have to lower the criteria and ignore the requirement on English speaking ability or the contest would have ended before it started," said Vu.

Perhaps Viet Nam is slowly coming to the conclusion that many other nations the world over have arrived at: beauty pageants are a misogynistic relic of a time when a woman was worth nothing more than her appearance.

Miss Jewellery 2007 was another contest that hoped to attract the attention of the media and the public, but failed. Luu Thi Van Anh who won the crown, had to sue the organiser for not paying her prize money. Dao Thi Van Anh, another contestant complained that the organisation board was unfair.

"The Organisation Board told us that we would draw lots to choose a kit of jewellery. But in the end, we were not able to do that. We had to wear a kit that had already been chosen for each of us," said Ngan.

Nguyen Thao Huong, who won the Miss Tourism title in Miss Viet Nam 2004 and Miss Photogenic in Miss ASEAN 2005, said that some contests seemed to be more like commercials for sponsors than celebrations of beauty and talent.

All these problems have forced officials to rethink the Beauty Contest Regulations.

"In many contests, the organisers depend too much on sponsors for finances which gives them inordinate power," said Le Ngoc Cuong.

Thus, Duong Xuan Nam, head of the Organisation Board of Miss Viet Nam suggested that the regulations should only allow highly regarded organisations with proven professional and financial abilities to organise beauty contests.

(Source: VNS)