My two cents on the new Miss World

I was bored last night and happened to turn on Star World when they were doing the live coverage of the Miss World 2007 pageant in Sanya. Miss China ended up winning the pageant, as I predicted while watching the darned thing. How predictable!

For the last few years, Sanya on Hainan Island has been the venue of the Miss World pageant. No doubt the Chinese paid beaucoup dinero to the Miss World Organization for the right to host this, and to bring tourist dollars and attention to the island. While it is customary to include the representative from the host nation into the semi-finals or even the finals, this time they really went too far to kiss up to China.

Was Miss China pretty? She was kinda cute but not gorgeous. Talent? I must admit I didn't watch the pageant from the beginning so I can't judge. What I did see was how badly she failed the questionaire during the final round.

Let's be honest. During the final round, everyone gets the same question. And I am sure that everyone would have had a chance to prepare for the question, especially since Miss China was not the first one picked to answer it. She failed miserably. She stuttered and was tongue-tied, on camera. I have never seen anyone flunk so badly during a Q&A at a pageant. She was obviously flustered and got worse and worse as time went on. 

Granted, one can argue that English is not her first language. But of the 5 finalists, only one (Trinidad & Tobago) came from a nation whose official language is English. So why did the other beauties not stumble? And why was China allowed to be crowned Miss World when the whole world saw her screw up so badly?

I'm disgusted with the desire of the world to kiss up to China.