Contest ‘bridges the gap’

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 7

Contest ‘bridges the gap’

By

CAROLE

VAN GRONDELLE

Covering yesterday’s early-morning champagne breakfast and press conference organised for the 1984 “Miss Asia and Pacific Quest” did not begin just as I walked through the door, notebook and pen in hand. It began the night before. How will I compare with the 20 stunning young women gathered there, I pondered? What will I wear? Have I done my nails and shaved my legs? Now be sure to blow-dry your hair in the morning, and use plenty of eye-shadow, I said to myself. Remember, don’t smile too often tomorrow, it shows up the wrinkles round the eyes. Then I stopped. This is the disease of women, I realised — comparing ourselves with one another. It’s something almost all of us do. We rank ourselves mentally on a scale of “She’s got better legs, bigger bust, smaller waist, smoother skin, lovelier hair” than me. It is the disease that world-wide keeps the exer-

cise classes full, makes the diet book publishers rich, and leads to growing numbers of young women starving themselves to death from anorexia nervosa. . .

Yet the young women contestants I spoke to yesterday over breakfast of croissants and fruit juice denied any element of comparison or competition in the two weeks they had been touring New Zealand together. They were a formidable line-up. Up at 5.30 a.m., they were showered, made up, dressed up, and coiffeured by 7 a.m. As they waited for members of the press to show, they chatted over breakfast.

“We’re all very friendly,” said Miss Elsie Ow Swee Peng, of Singapore. At present, Miss Ow Swee Peng attends the National University of Singapore, where she is studying economics, statistics, and Chinese. “The atmosphere is not competitive,” said Miss Gayle-Anne Jones, a junior soloist with the New Zealand Ballet Company, on leave of absence because of an injury.

“No bitchiness has appeared yet. I think the consensus is that there should not be an over-all winner.

“Everybody has a right to be here because we are all lovely. So why pick a winner out of a bunch of beautiful ladies?” It is a contest, and there will be a winner who stands to gain a lot of money and public attention as her prize.

The contestants I spoke to said they were taking part for fun. They had made a personal choice to enter — they may never otherwise have travelled to New Zealand and they believed that they were doing an important job as ambassadors for their countries. They were impressive in their sincerity, and articulate in their reasons'for entering. “Through us the contest bridges the gap between our countries,” said Miss Aurora Mandanas, of the Philippines, who is a model and a market researcher for a Japanese company in Hong Kong. She is fluent in both

Japanese and English. “Just the fact that we are in New Zealand builds up international good will.” The organisers have emphasised the importance of personality and intelligence in this contest. There will be no swimsuit parade. “In the past contestants were simply expected to pad out a swimsuit, but today the emphasis is far more on the whole person, her attitudes to her life, her health, and her social role,” said the programme’s director, Mr Rex Simpson. For the 60 million or so viewers world-wide who are expected to tune in to. the 90-minute extravaganza, they have nothing else but beauty — and half a minute of question and answer — by which to judge the contestants.

Leaving the 20 women to continue their day’s busy schedule, it was almost a physical relief to drive back to work and see the city’s women walking on the streets, baggy stockings, size 14 trousers, frizzy hair and all.