An excited nervousness hangs in the air as a horde of girls team the corridors of the Novotel in St Pancras, giggling to each other and making final make-up touch-ups before they go to meet the judges. The sixty contestants have travelled from across the country in a bid to win the chance of becoming the next Miss China UK 2009.

Of the sixty only twenty will be selected to go through to the next round, to be only further whittled down to the last remaining twelve. These will then appear on stage in the grand final at the Apollo Theatre in London on the 18th October, the results of which will go on to be broadcast across Asia and Europe.

For each of the girls this could be the next step to potential stardom. For Miss China Europe 2007 winner Oceana Zhu, her career has gone from strength to strength, after signing a management contract with TVB Hong Kong. Her foray into acting has seen Zhu landing a major role in the movie ‘Prince of Tears’ directed by famous Chinese director Yon Fan. From drama student to walking the red carpet at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Zhu has been catapulted into the limelight in the space of two years. Her success is something most girls dream about; when you consider the media exposure and endorsement possibilities - the rewards can be incredibly lucrative.

The girls’ backgrounds range from bankers, accountants, medical students to schoolgirls still at sixth form. They have come from across the country, some even as far as Ireland, in a bid for fame and fortune. A friendly camaraderie is evident; there is no bitchy rivalry yet, more of a supportive sister-hood. I have yet to witness any tears or tantrums or gossipy cliques; rather I am impressed by their grace and maturity.

THE THREE STAGES

Each girl will be required to go through three stages and will be judged accordingly on each: the Catwalk, the Photoshoot and the Interview. Each round will have its own panel of judges who will give each girl a score according to how well she performs. The most nail biting part is the interview round where the girls will find themselves face to face with the executive judges and answer a barrage of questions. Here they will have a chance to tilt the balance if they have not performed so well in the other rounds. The top twenty that score the highest will go through to the next round.

WALKING THE WALK

I sneak into the catwalk judging room and watch as the girls attempt to impress the judges with their moves. It’s one of the more awkward elements of the contest as very few of them will have had any catwalk experience before. The majority totter in high heels and criss-cross the rooms dressed in bikinis. Judge Fiona Hoang, explains that whilst catwalk experience is not expected, they are looking for a degree of poise and presentation. ‘We watch the girls for confidence, posture and how they present themselves. Height is important however – we will be looking for girls over 5ft 3, any shorter and they won’t come across well on the stage.’ The girls today come in all shapes and sizes ranging from short to tall, curvy to slim although no one here today seems to be over a size 12.

I watch Maggie Chan, a Hong Kong-born twenty-three year old student totter precariously in high heels in front of the judges. Currently studying for a chartered accountancy degree at Ulster University, Chan has flown in especially from Belfast for the competition. Having lived the past six years in Ireland she chatters sweetly with a fetching Irish lilt and confesses to being nervous in what is her first beauty contest.

For some of other contestants this won't be their first time at a beauty pageant. For Christina Gee it is her third such contest and the ease at which she goes through her paces demonstrates a confidence borne of experience. Currently working as a financial analyst at Deutsche Bank, Gee looks more like a fresh faced teen straight out of school belying her twenty-five years. Standing at 167 cm tall she is very slim, like most of the girls here. I ask her what her secret is. She laughs and declares she doesn’t diet. ‘But I don’t eat much English food’ she confesses. ‘I prefer Asian food, Chinese, Thai or Japanese.’ I ask her if she eats bread or potatoes. ‘No bread, but potatoes yes.’ Maybe this could be the key to maintaining a slim figure - I make a mental note to myself, more rice and less bread. This could be my new daily mantra. Gee sees the pageant as a good opportunity to diversify into charity work, miles away from the unrelenting pace of banking. Armed with a degree in mathematics, Tianjin-born Gee shows that brains and beauty are the rule not the exception amongst today’s entrants.

Some of the girls here range from the quietly ambitious to the more openly driven. Twenty-five year old Tuyet Ho, a project manager at Deutsche Bank sits firmly in the latter camp. ‘I am here because I definitely want to win. I am very competitive, self-motivated and independent.’ In fact she uses the word competitive three times to describe herself and I am struck by her honesty and openness. For in spite of her personal assertion, the competitive, desperate air that so typically hangs in beauty contests is strangely lacking today. A competitive rivalry must exist but if it does it lies much subdued. The resounding feedback from the girls today is primarily how pleased they are to have made so many new friends. A faux humility for the camera? I would say not, the atmosphere seems to be genuinely friendly and warm. Comfortable in their own skin and assured of their talents, the girls remain polite, composed and respectful throughout. Whether that will be the case in the final round is another story.

INTERVIEW ROUND

The photography round is straightforward enough as the girls hold various poses for the camera but it’s the interview with the judges which proves to be the real clincher. The girls have just a few minutes to impress the judges and let their personality and wit shine through. The interview panel is made up of three executive judges, the same judges that will eventually pick the final pageant winner; Daniel Chan sits in the middle, responsible for creating the concept of MCUK and showcasing it in Europe. On his right is Wendy Wang, China Desk Manager of sponsor CMC Markets and to the left sits TV presenter Cecilia Chew, from the network broadcaster-giant TVB-S.

The first candidate to be interviewed is twenty-four year old Tina Sun. Originally from Dandong in China the 5ft 9" beauty could easily pass for a catwalk model. However she herself admits that height alone is not enough. ‘A lot of the girls here have some kind of talent, some are musicians or dancers. I think you need a special talent to stand out’

SIFTING THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF

In this overwhelming sea of beauty it is the judges’ difficult task to pick out who should go through to the next round. I ask them what it is they are looking for. Wendy Wang declares it is definitely brains over beauty. “It is not particularly what they say but how they present themselves and respond. There are no right answers but we are looking for someone who is confident and can think on their feet - if they have experience performing on stage then that will help too. ”

Each girl has her own unique selling points and is given ten minutes in the interview room to impress the judges. Some girls shine more brightly than others leaving the weaker contestants apparent. One British-born candidate, on being asked to state her reasons for entering the competition, responded that she saw it as a way of reclaiming her Asian heritage and a way of making her parents proud. The judges smile politely but their silence is telling after she leaves the room. The crown for Miss China UK does not automatically confer to its owner a degree of culture by proxy.

Some of the other contestants have more clearly defined goals as to what they are trying to achieve. Jenny Hao, a twenty-two year old medical student at Imperial College, is clear about her personal and professional direction, pageant or no pageant. Amongst one of the taller girls here at 5ft’ 7” the Shenyang-born student decided she wanted to practise medicine at the age of sixteen. ‘I would like to be a doctor or a surgeon. If I won the competition I would use the publicity and media to highlight charity work in China, especially in the poor rural areas where people cannot afford to pay for medicine.’ She remarks how one of the greatest features in the UK is the National Health Service. ‘It’s a free service that we are very lucky to have over here and take for granted. In China healthcare must be paid for and many poor people cannot afford it.’

Another entrant who impresses the judges with her focus and determination is nineteen year old Gisele Lee. Having previously appeared on X-factor, nineteen-year old Lee talks passionately about her music and bursts into song in front of the judges with a heartfelt rendition of Mariah Carey’s ‘I will make it through the rain.’ Her voice wavers towards the end but her conviction and sincerity shines through. The judges look genuinely impressed and give her a round of applause and Lee’s face flushes with delight.

TALKING THE TALK

Although not officially stated the contestants are required to be proficiently bi-lingual. The judges grill the girls in Mandarin, Cantonese or English or sometimes combination of all three. It quickly becomes clear that those that do not speak either of the Chinese languages are at a significant disadvantage as the filmed finals will be conducted mainly in Mandarin and Cantonese. Broadcast to an Asian audience there will be very little English spoken on stage. Production house TVB have created a show to target the home and overseas Asian market and bilingualism is to be expected. This could prove to be the last tricky hurdle for some of the less fluent British-born contestants.

THE ICING ON THE CAKE

So what exactly is driving such qualified and intelligent young ladies to enter a beauty pageant in the first place? Do they in any way mind that they are subjecting themselves to such a blatant objectification of their bodies? Or do they see it as just the icing on the cake on top of a long list of achievements? Already armed with a bright future in terms of career and qualifications these girls seem eager to prove themselves equally in the beauty arena and are not ashamed to admit it.

THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY

The fact that there is considerably less of a stigma attached to beauty pageants in China than here in the west is telling. The beauty pageant’s newfound rise in popularity can be better understood by examining it against China’s historical socio-cultural backdrop in the decades that preceded it.

For a start it is a relatively new phenomenon. China’s first beauty contest appeared in Guangzhou in 1988, a good sixty years behind America’s first national pageant in 1921, and thirty years after the UK’s first beauty contest Miss World in 1951 (which still runs to this present day). Beauty contests had been banned by Mao ever since he established rule in 1949 with the Communist Party. At the height of the Mao-era, the ‘60s for Chinese women were harsh repressive times. Whilst their western sisters in the United States and the UK were going through a sexual revolution known as the Swinging Sixties, openly proclaiming free love and publicly torching their bras, the women of China were undergoing the equivalent of the Suppressive Sixties, denouncing their femininity for entirely different reasons.

In the name of Maoist sexual equality women cropped their hair short and donned the same drab uniforms as their male cadres. The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1977, on paper was designed to destroy social distinction. In reality however it only served to deprive women of their personal freedoms and the right to govern their own bodies.

Quite simply the feminist argument against beauty pageants is one that has not raised its head in China yet purely because China has yet to experience a fully emancipated, liberal society. Feminist derision is a luxury that Chinese women have yet to experience, more concerned with getting ahead in today’s society. Fast forward to the present day and it is as almost if Chinese women are going through a reversed feminist movement, keen to show off their looks to the world and are now given social sanction to do so.

It is also striking testimony that most of today’s contestants are here due to their mothers’ encouragement. Tracy Ng, an eighteen year old sixth-form student has come down from Liverpool due to her mum’s insistence that she put herself forward. ‘It was my mum who told me about the competition and she’s the main reason I’m here today.’ Could it be that the pageant’s strongest supporters hail from a generation of women who, unable to celebrate their own beauty, are now actively encouraging their daughters to go forth and celebrate theirs?

The Chinese culture has traditionally prized education above the ‘shallow exterior.’ Yet there is nothing to say that both cannot be had. Shallowness may be frowned upon, but money, travel and career possibilities can give what was dismissed as superficial, the new thumbs up. You will find girls pushing themselves onto the world stage keen to enjoy what other countries have enjoyed for decades before them. Looks can only be an aid not a hindrance in this media-driven age. The times they are indeed a-changing.

For today’s generation of Chinese women the opportunity to forge an identity outside the traditional role of sacrificial mother/dutiful wife is very real and obtainable. The path to independence and success is littered with stepping stones of which a beauty contest is only one. The opening up of China’s economy has made a big difference to how contests such as these are received. What once was derided is in today’s Asia a practical and plausible route to riches. The global licensing opportunities mean TV broadcasters are onto a lucrative money-spinner beaming their content to an Asian community across the world. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

THE GIRLS WHO WANT TO HAVE IT ALL

And what about the girls who want it all? The majority of today’s contestants come across as high-flying achievers. A PHD from Oxford and the accolade of beauty queen seem to go hand in hand these days. No longer thought of (if you’ll forgive the pun), as the crowning glory of a girl’s career, the title of beauty queen is just another notch to an already heavily scored bow. The beauties I witness today already have a firm idea of where they are going, and are savvy enough to use any means to get them there. Charity work in the medical field on top of juggling a family and career? I call it the Angelina Jolie effect – the girls who want it all and aren’t afraid to say so.

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See the Miss China UK contestants here