"Get to know the contestants of 2012 MISS UNIVERSE® Pageant," reads this YouTube description. Do we have to? More information about Miss China: Xu Jidan is 22, a model from Jilin province, 1.8 meters tall, and a graduate of Shanghai Donghua University. Apparently she dances flemenco. For winning Miss China, she won a ridiculous 3.68 million yuan diamond tiara -- not ridiculous because she didn't deserve it, ...

Look, we'll be the first to admit that there's a lot about the China-USA Super Model Contest that we don't know. Maybe it's a pageant to promote Sino-American cooperation. Maybe it's a worthwhile soft power push in which the ultimate winners are Americans doing business in China, and vice versa. Maybe it's a contest to find the best potential foreign exchange students. But if we told you something called th ...

Something called the Mr. Hong Kong Nepal 2012 Bodybuilding Championship -- which somehow has been going on for 10 years -- happened recently, and was won by Bishwa Bahadur Thapa Magar (though we've also seen his name spelled "Bishow Thapa Magar"). We think this contest is for Nepalese men based in Hong Kong. We think. None of this is really the point, though. ...

About 200 men participated in the first round of auditions on Saturday for the ATV 2012 Mr. Asia contest, the finals of which will be held on November 18. Before we proceed, you should know that the five contestants pictured above are named Wong Chak Fung, Lee Si Tung, Wat Ho Ming, Wong Ching Chung, and Bruno. Bruno. Yeah, this Hong Kong competition is ridonkulous. Twenty-four lucky contestants will compete ...

We're going to let People's Daily do the heavy lifting on this one. Take it away, boys (assume [sic]'s): On that day, the final of the 23rd Super Model of The World .Guangxi .China was held in Nanning, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A total of 20 contestants competed in several awards including The Best Camera-Shy, The Best Stature, The Best vigor, The Best Talent and The Best Smile. No. 26 ...

We've seen beauty pageants for cows, so it would naturally follow that there would be a pageant for goldfish. In Fuzhou, Fujian province on Saturday, 3,000 fish from 14 different countries competed in the International Goldfish Championship. They were judged according to breed, body shape, swimming gesture, color, and overall impression, judge Ye Qichang told ITN News. Some fish stood out more than others, ...

Somewhere down the line, I'm not sure when or where, beauty pageants stopped being about who was the most physically attractive and instead, in theory, about who was the most all-around beautiful, taking into account personality, skills, and one's sincerity in wishing for world peace. A beauty contest in Hubei has recently declared: Screw that -- beauty pageants should be about the prettiest, damnit, and he ...

Saturday saw another beauty pageant in China, the final of Miss Universe China in Shanghai. According to the official website -- "celebrating Chinese women!" -- 21 contestants vied for the prize of 3.28 million yuan and the chance to represent China in the Miss Universe contest in December. Xu Jidan from Jilin -- looking slightly less robotic than Miss World -- beat runners-up Xu Lingyue and Zhang Yutong to ...

This is so lame. ...

Update, 8/27, 12:13 pm: Found some raw footage of the pageant, embedded after the jump. Yu Wenxia may have won the Miss World crown on Saturday, but could she hold a pail to any of these cows? I'll let Want China Times explain this one: "The first ever beauty pageant for cows is being held in Shanxi province, with models posing with the cows. A total of 200 cows from 11 farms have joined the competition, an ...

If you're wondering why the new Miss World's smile looks so robotic, you might find the answer in this Forbes article about cosmetics mogul Yue-sai Kan, who is the national director for Miss Universe China. Granting that Miss World and Miss Universe are different, it's still telling that Kan operates a "boot camp" that winnows out women until a select few candidates -- the world beauty pageant ideal -- rema ...

I've made you wait long enough. After the jump you'll find the promo video for the 37th Miss Bikini International 2012 along with more pictures. Who cares if there's a chance they're all Russian? The Miss Bikini International Pageant seems to have an official-looking website (MissBikini.cc), but it's hard to navigate, probably because it was designed for PCs. More useful information can be found on this Wor ...