Life
Some reflections on pageantry
So it’s back to being a civilian again.
I applied a slick of black eyeliner and donned my skinniest jeans to commemorate the thinnest that I have ever been – I’m doing some guilt-free gorging on sushi, Chinese food, and lattes for a few days.
My first proper post-pageant meal at Peach Farm in Chinatown. I DEMOLISHED this and got a horrible stomachache.
Final makeup
Being in a pageant made me realize (although my friends have been telling me for a long time) that I’m thin. For some reason, I assumed that every other contestant was going to be rail thin and super toned. Not so – the diversity of bodies on display was surprising, and I may not have been the leggiest or the blondest, but I realized after in the flesh, side by side comparison, that I should probably, you know, chill out. I have a lot be thankful for.
Thanks for all your support which is been so amazing – all the well wishes were much appreciated. I do wish, however, that I can avoid the look of disappointment on peoples’ faces when I tell them I didn’t place. I feel that I need to qualify not winning anything with a statement like, “Well, I messed up my interviews,” or note that a lot of other contestants were convinced I’d make the top 20, and this feels like cheating what little insight I’ve gained from doing this. I wish that could more eloquently convey that brief hour or two of realization after not making the top 20 that I deserved to be up there without seeming self-righteous or a sore loser.
I’m beautiful the way I am! No, honestly, I am. I hadn’t really believed it, but it finally seemed like the truth.
But losing is painful. I wonder how the other girls felt.
What fascinated me most were the girls there. While the girls in the top 20 were the kind I expected to find, the vast majority were far more interesting in their rationales of being there. A pageant, I realized, is really about the experience for some of them. It’s an opportunity to wear a pretty dress, walk down a runway, have your photo taken, and feel like a queen for two minutes. It’s a fantasy you buy.
But who am I to say that these girls don’t deserve to spend their money and feel like they’re beautiful too?
Evening gown prelim makeup
There was such a sadness to the fantasy. I came in convinced I couldn’t win, realized that I was perfectly qualified to win, and left sad I didn’t win anyway. Other girls seemed to come in not realizing the sharks they were up against. They wanted to believe they could be models, despite coming up many inches and pounds short. A lot of girls didn’t understand what it meant to be in a pageant – that there were a certain kind of shoe you wore, a certain kind of dress you buy, an entire, fairly rigid series of rituals in preparing for competition.
These questions interested me a lot more, in the end, than what it meant to be Chinese in a non-racially defined pageant. However, it’s worth noting that there was one other Asian girl there, who had won the New York title of the Miss Earth pageant, a cum laude grad from Penn with dancing awards under her belt. I felt like she was competition, and we never gravitated towards one another. She ended up making the top 20, but not going beyond that.
I’ll post some more photos later, perhaps some more thoughts, but it’s been an interesting – and utterly exhausting – journey. I’m glad to have met some fantastic people along the way, and I hope there’s bigger and better stuff in store for me.
I didn’t win! But I learned…
… that I’m fine the way I am, and that my favorite girls, Dana and Runa, were ROBBED of the title. D:
The girl who won is in the middle:
Miss NY USA 2010 in the white dress, forget her name.
My roommate Dana is on the right, she placed in the top five.
More coherent thoughts later on the whole experience.
My scary pageant face
So it’s about an hour until I have to leave, and I’m slathered in spray tan makeup all over my body. I’m wearing so much makeup I’m afraid my skin will never recover. My false eyelashes are coated in black mascara goo. My hair is teased within an inch of its life.
Beauty is so, so ugly.
Final show for Miss NY USA 2010 in three hours
… wish me luck!
They’ll be announcing the top 20, who will walk again in their evening gowns. After that, it’ll be narrowed to the top ten, who switch into their swimsuits in a frenzy of nakedness and boob-adjustment. Then the lucky top five will be announced – and they’ll quick change again into evening gown and answer really easy questions off their bio sheets.
I’m currently 1) groggy. And uh, 2) groggy.
The girl right after me is a super sweet model who’s done an internship at NASA, so I hope she or my roommate wins… but we’ll see! Going to do some extra crunches beforehand for muscle definition just in case, haha.
I think three days of pageantry is definitely enough for me.
Behind the scenes at Miss New York USA, Day 2
Welcome to another day of hair teasing, fake eyelashing, and uh, sitting around.
A lot of being in a pageant involves two activites
- Getting “ready”
- This takes at least two hours and 20 products and half a can of hairspray. Essential to the process is the tease-and-curl (not some crunk dance move) of backcombing strips of hair to create that 80′s mall diva allure. I failed at this for evening gown.
- Waiting
- You watch other contestants stomp/sashay/stumble down the carpeted runway whilst the MC herds you along like the incompetent 14 year olds you are. Sometimes this is punctuated with “spontaneous” Zumba lessons, which are CLEARLY scheduled in.
Yes kids, I eventually got up and shook my butt as well. I’m no pageant killjoy. I dance backstage before we get on as well… this was particularly true yesterday as we waiting in our bikinis and 6 inch heels to parade about like a particularly well-padded dog show.
The closing number included a former Miss Connecticut singing “Turn the Beat Around” while we all clapped and tried not to fall over in our interview suits.
Speaking of the interview, it reminded me a lot of my speed dating experience, except it was speedier. We got two minutes with each judge. At least ten seconds was spent walking over and waiting for them to find out bio sheet. I accidentally frightened one by impatiently achievement-dumping him upon waiting for him to lcoate the bio sheet.
Me: SO LET ME GIVE YOU THE SHORT VERSION I’M A JUNIOR AT HARVARD AND I’VE WRITTEN INTERNATIONALLY FOR PUBLICATIONS AND I HELPED FOUND AN NGO —
Him: Ok. take a deep breath.
Me: Ok.
Him: What do you do for fun?
Me: I like to eat out. I ate bull testicles! And calves brains! There was a video!!!
I’m not sure how that went.
I chilled out after that and fared much better. Sometime I got annoyed that a judge used our precious 30 seconds to talk about themselves… because there was so little time that there was almost no time to even give my “I’m awesome!!” elevator pitch.
(And by awesome, I mean dropping the H-Bomb shamelessly. I may not have the biggest hair, or uh, biggest other parts, but my education is really old, pretentious, and expensive!)
The evening gown preliminaries went off fine, except some GIRL stepped on my dressed and ripped a piece of the bottom. It was sewn up by a chaperone, thank god.
The key with evening gown is to walk very slowly and evenly, as if you’re floating, and to radiate happiness and good will at the judges while keeping excellent posture.
I find out tomorrow during the final pageant whether I made it into the top 20 (possible!) or not. If I do, I’ll compete in evening gown and swimsuit again. If I make it into the top five (doubtful!), I’d have to answer an on stage question taken from my bio sheet.
Dear blog readers, wish me luck on my journey towards breaking racial barriers. I’m just a humble Chinese- American girl chasing this red white and blue dream. I’m an immigrant in a country built by immigrants. Boys barked at me in middle school – and it’s haunted me ever since.
You know, it’s funny that it’s taken something as shallow and somewhat dehumanizing as a beauty pageant to realize that I have many other excellent qualities other than my physical appearance or ability to speed date a judge. Like my ability to purchase stylish evening wear for only $45! Second Time Around on Boston’s Newbury St., baby.
Check it outtt.
Me and Dana, my fabulous roommate, last year's 2rd runner up!
I think I made a styling error in going for an updated retro chic feel with the red lips and hair – makeup and hair in pageantry follow a pretty exacting formula of soft mauve lip and smokey brown or purple-black eye.
