Miss Laowai China - Not Just Another Beauty Pageant?

Expat women in China can probably all recount an unpleasant experience of being objectified and typecast as just wanting to have fun. Miss Laowai China, happening September 11 at 21st Century Theater, can't be said to help perceptions -- after all, what screams objectification more than a beauty pageant? -- but organizer David Sinkala insists his show will be different from the others.

"If the ultimate goal is world peace," he says, intentionally borrowing from the beauty contestant phrasebook, "then what is the initial step to attaining that? If I'm not peaceful in my heart, and I'm part of the world, what world peace are you talking about?"

Using that as a guiding principle, Miss Laowai aims to be -- believe it or not -- a community event that effects good on multiple levels.

Sixty percent of this year's proceeds will benefit cancer research and treatment at Tiantan Puhua International Hospital, and contestants have already participated in goodwill activities around the city, including a recent visit to Bethel, an orphanage for the blind.

Nillah Nyakoa, a journalist and pageant contestant, recalls the initial Miss Laowai meeting last December in Park Plaza Hotel. She was close to dropping out until she heard Sinkala speak.

"What I remember and what really touched me was when he said Miss Laowai China is going to be very, very different from any of the other pageants because we're going to be involved and meet people as we create awareness of breast cancer," Nyakoa says.

Others haven't been so easily convinced. In March, Global Times opined about the event under the headline, "Foreign women need no show to celebrate their grace." Sensitive to criticism, Sinkala nonetheless has opened up his pageant to journalists, who can be quite the cynical kind. Count me as among the many who, upon hearing about this pageant last year, wanted to unleash the full brunt of sarcasm at this latest off China's assembly line of pageants. This is a country, after all, that's home to the Miss Artificial Beauty Pageant, where women are judged in part on the quality of their plastic surgery. Who can blame us for being skeptical?

Miss Laowai participants know this, yet they remain unbowed. Take Bo-Yee Poon, as unlikely a contestant as you'll find, a self-described tomboy who preferred skateboarding and snowboarding while growing up in Vermont. She welcomes the attention Miss Laowai draws -- even negative -- "because then we would be promoting the knowledge of breast cancer and breast cancer prevention," she says.

It's worth noting -- and here the cloud of cynicism grows -- that event organizers aren't immune to concealing profit-driven motives behind noble causes. But Sinkala, who first arrived in China 10 years ago from Zambia to write a thesis about education, is an unconventional beauty pageant promoter whose intentions maybe, just maybe -- and this is our better part speaking, or hoping -- are indeed honest.

"This is a society that I've come to accept as my second home, and being in this second home, I need to live outside my box, outside my apartment, and see, okay, how is my neighbor doing? What is the situation around me?" he says. "And the best way to do that is to get involved in activities that deal with the community, and Miss Laowai can be that way."

Nyakoa adds, "Other pageants are about winning and having the crown, [but] I believe everybody who is participating in Miss Laowai China is a winner in their own way, because we're here for a common goal."

The goal is indeed a worthy one. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer for women, killing more than half a million people each year worldwide. Rates in China, though not comparatively high, are increasing, and breast cancer already is the country's number one killer of women. Furthermore, efforts to screen for cancer and build awareness have sometimes been met with resistance.

"People are crying out with a silent voice to be heard that actually breast cancer really is a problem in this society," Sinkala says. "We visited some people [who told us] that they've lost their husband through divorce or through negligence. There's this stigma: they don't want to show their neighbors or they don't want to come out and say they have an illness in the family.

"So what we thought was, you know what, if you can get beautiful girls to come up and say, Breast cancer... [I'm] concerned, it can affect me, then [maybe] people are going to look and say, [If] a beautiful girl like that can talk about breast cancer, then we can talk about breast cancer in our families and at home and see how we can prevent it."

The pageant on September 11 will feature 30 to 40 contestants and will consist of four parts: traditional dress, talent show, evening gown and question-and-answer. There will be a panel of six judges: an oncologist, a World Health Organization doctor, an employee from Lanting Communications Company, someone from the Friendship Association, and the chief editors of Global Times and the Beijinger (in the interest of full disclosure, that's Jonathan White, who says he's taking the job "with the utmost seriousness").

"We hope everybody comes to see this," Sinkala says, adding with a laugh, "This is going to be one of the biggest events ever in Beijing, apart from the Olympics."

The first-ever Miss Laowai China pageant is on September 11 (exact time to be determined) at 21st Century Theater (inside 21st Century Hotel, 40 Liangmaqiao Lu).

Tickets can be purchased by calling 13911205614 or emailing misslaowai@yahoo.com (350 RMB for general admission, 580 RMB for VIP, but special discounted tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis at 150/300 RMB; group discounts are also available).