Only a week ago we were lamenting the dearth of female presence at a UN Women’s event in Beijing; now comes an event that celebrates a plus size of it.

The Miss Plus Size International pageant, to be held this Saturday at a luxury hotel in downtown Beijing, isn’t a contest one would immediately associate with China, but – fuck it, it’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do about it. As 36-year-old contestant Anne Homu told Time Out, “There’s a lot of big-sized Chinese and maybe they’ll get confidence if they see us.”

The current lineup features plus-size (US size 12, UK size 16) entrants from the UK, Angola, Gabon, Egypt, India, Portugal, Rwanda, Greece, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the US — and one from China, “Baby Tiger.” Ditching the swimsuits, the 16 contestants will compete over four rounds — Fashion Casual Wear, Fashion Trouser Wear, Evening Gown, and Talent — to win a top prize of RMB 6,000.

Although beauty contests are seen back home as hip and vital as Donald Trump’s shriveled organs, this one’s about empowerment in a non-judgmental environment and all that jazz. “Curves are in!” the organizers say: “Larger women are often rejected by other beauty pageants and this Pageant is here to change the perception of the world.”

If you have 300 kuai to hand, were only planning to spend it on cheap drinks, and would like to have your perceptions changed, what are you waiting for?

POSTSCRIPT: “Miss Plus Size Beijing is a brain child of Dr Samantha Sibanda a Zimbabwean currently based in Beijing.”

Tianjin’s been called the armpit of Beijing, but every once in a while we’re reminded that the city has beaches, a few nice German-made buildings, and, um, I guess supermodels.

That last part isn’t true at all, but the World Model Organization (WMO) recently held a promotional photo shoot for a “super model contest” — Xinhua’s words — in Tianjin, in advance of the final of the “23rd WMO super model contest” on August 2, featuring 37 contestants from at least 20 countries and regions.

Some of the pictures from that photo-op are too good to ignore. Such as this one, in which a woman plays the world’s shittiest harp:

Are those piano wires? Why so mangled? Were they employed by mafioso? If that harp is able to produce even one note, I’ll let an iguana eat my eyeballs.

The sashes are marvelous, too. “WMO Super Model,” they read:

Everyone should have to wear labels that identify exactly what they’re about. When someone wearing the “PUBLICITY AGENT” sash approaches at a party, I can politely and promptly walk the other direction.

From the imagined conversations files:

– Oooooh ivy, you’re almost as sexy as me. Ooooooh ivy, on the sand, kiss me, caress me, play with my hair. Oooooh i…

– That’s poison ivy.

– Aw shit.

The woman in the middle will one day give birth to a rubber hand.

We know, girl. We know.

Occasionally in showbusiness or sports, the odds against a performer’s success are so stacked that the audience chooses, out of the goodness of human compassion, to root against probability. It’s why we pull for Celtic FC when they face Barcelona, or Susan Boyle. I hadn’t planned to cheer for the pageant contestants of Miss World China on Sunday at Galaxy SOHO — hadn’t not planned to cheer, as planning these things one way or another would be odd – but a realization dawned upon me sometime between the rain and the fake applause piped in through the sound system: these girls are all underdogs in their own spotlight. They deserve better.

At one moment, the hosts came on stage to postpone the competition due to drizzle. A minute later they changed their minds and asked the crowd whether they wanted the competition to continue, fully expecting some — and I don’t know why they would expect this out of a Chinese crowd — enthusiastic, ebullient cry of affirmation. “Meh,” came the reply.

“This side, do you want the show to go on?” the hostess implored. “This” side of the crowd almost clapped — you can watch this scene in the video embedded below.

“What about this side, do you want the show to go on?” she asked the other side, pushing her luck. Nothing. No chirp. A few people might have blinked. It was a tragic reaction.

When she asked again, the host next to her uttered a desperate, Howard Dean yelp into his microphone, so sad it doesn’t deserve another word of mention.

Sadder yet was the barricade that kept out the people who truly wanted to get in, who might have appreciated this spectacle more than the Miss World clients and PR agents who were gifted free tickets. At one point, a woman carrying a toddler squeezed through a crack in the barricade, only to be blocked by a security guard, a young man who, one could tell, wanted to let this woman through, but didn’t because he’s young to the ways of China and felt obligated to his work. She was eventually ushered out, as were other poor chaps who didn’t look like they belonged — who weren’t in skinny black dresses, ironic suits, purple button-ups or tight jeans, holding SLR cameras or iPhones, happy to be seen.

Against a backdrop of disinterested spectators, contestants sashayed in bikinis, ill-fitting gowns, and costumes with too many flounces, sequins, and popped-up collars. You can imagine the hours of coaching that went into their slow walks, with former pageant queens barking at them, “You have to surprise yourself!” Some wore expressions that matched their clothing — overdone — while others tried their damndest to let a bit of inner glow shine through the plaster on their faces, and still others went ambitious, aimed for sultry — came away with bottled-tantrum faces, probably, but the effort was admirable. They tried, they made an honest go of it, and goodness, they deserved our appreciation.

Near the end of the night, with the girls together on stage for the grand finale, at least two contestants began crying. One of them, No. 14, was asked to say a few words, and she managed, “I’m very emotional because we all tried so hard, and I feel happy for everyone.” That felt real. And if it wasn’t, it was at least a good show — sadly wasted on us.

The winner was No. 8, Yu Weiwei, who can almost be considered a beauty pageant lifer, as she finished second runner-up in this competition in 2011 and 2009. She was presented the crown by last year’s winner of Miss World, China’s very own Yu Wenxia.

As for the rest of the night, here’s RFH, editor of That’s Beijing:

RFH (middle) pregames with That’s Beijing columnist Carlos Ottery and token Chinese friend

The rain, though never that much worse than fine sheet of drizzle, was always going to put a dampener on things. I went off with a colleague in search of beers – there were no refreshments in the event – and found a nearby 7-Eleven, where I purchased a half-dozen editions of Erdinger weiss beer. In the course of time it took for us to drain a can each – maybe 20 minutes – I got messages saying my guests had arrived, no one knew what the fuck was going on, where was I and the pageant was over; everyone had gone home. Huh?

Turns out the after-party wasn’t at the obvious location – the one where the pageant took place – but at Suzie Wong’s, a couple of miles away. In the rain. Did I mention that, whenever it rains, Beijing stops? It just keels over and dies. If you’ve made plans, you can forget about them, coz it’s over, boy. It’s raining. Where’s the Spirit of the Blitz? I don’t even know who won the competition. Getting to Suzie’s was a drag. We stopped off at Great Leap for some reason: pre-gaming for Suzie probably. By the time we got to the club, it was past midnight and the free drinks had stopped. But the managers took pity on our drowned-rat appearances and gave us some gin-tonics. There was little sign of any Miss World folks or glamorous models. Just us, of course.

We reluctantly repaired to the nearby Black Sun black hole for cheap beer and cheaper pool. There were a couple of Sunday drinkers already passed out – a blonde and a Chinese guy. They had the right idea.

And finally, our surroundings:

If you’re into beauty pageants — and I say this knowing no one is, really — there’s a big one happening tonight, the finals of Miss World China, at Galaxy SOHO. Our friends at That’s Beijing are running a very easy contest to get you in the event – that includes a special invite-only afterparty that commences at 10 pm — so if you want to rub elbows with the peachy, the yutzy, the beautiful though probably boxy, the sclerotic and robotic — p-fucking-s, FREE DRINKS — answer this question in an email to bjeditor@urbanatomy.com with “Miss World” in the subject line:

Where are the most beautiful girls in China and why?

Speaking of robots, here’s your reminder that the reigning Miss World champion is China’s very own Yu Wenxia, who won the global competition last August in Ordos, Inner Mongolia.

The finals this year will be held on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia on September 28. Here’s the Miss World website.

Galaxy SOHO, by the way, is apparently the new big-event spot of Beijing, after hosting the Craft Beer Festival and the Beijinger party earlier this year. We’ll let you know how this pageant goes.

Here are the contestants for tonight’s event. Click to enlarge.

Miss World China Final (That’s Beijing)

“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, or the results were manipulated, or she isn’t worth it… but because 3.68 million yuan.

Miss Universe is happening December 19 in New York, and viewers are able to vote their favorite contestant into the semifinals. If China ever hears about this, Xu Jidan is a lock. This country sort of loves pageants, and knows how to win ‘em.

By the way, her name is written as Ji Dan Xu on the Miss Universe website, and always only Ji Dan Xu. I think it’s because no one working for Miss Universe knows whether her last name is Ji or Xu. Youku video for those in China after the jump, plus the entire Miss China show.

Quick recap of Miss China 2012:

Full Miss China pageant:

(H/T Alicia)

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 the China-USA Super Model Contest happened on Sunday (the “China Area” portion of it, anyway), tell me the above picture isn’t exactly the image that would pop into your head. Yeah…

Forbes, best that we can tell, was the only Western media outlet that tried to cover this event, and the emphasis is squarely on the word try: “The contest is part of a China-U.S. cultural exchange program and was organized by some American companies.”

All we know is Zeng Cheng (center, below picture) won, Fang Xingtong (right) came second, and Cheng Lin (other girl) came third. You can learn more (maybe) about the contest on the official website here. Pictures via Xinhua.

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. The point is: that picture. THAT. Featuring bodybuilders who look more like Gigolo Joe than Jude Law ever could. Those four, whoever they are, brighten the world, and I don’t mean literally, though they certainly are wearing enough bronzer to do that, too.

I screen-grabbed the above from a rather amazing 14-minute video, available after the jump, via a really rather amazing website, JPTHK, the “First Nepalese Online video Magazine.” It’s about as mind-bending an Internet webpage as you will find.

And P.S.: you asked for this post. You know who you are:

A comment on our Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival post.

So there you have it, “Ria,” if that is your real name.

Or… did you want something attractive? Don’t look to Hong Kong.

(H/T Alicia)

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 in the finals. How they’ll ever pick 24 out of this batch is beyond me, but I’m personally rooting for Tang Kan Man, who “demonstrated a ‘banana act,’ in which he wore banana pasties and swung a set of bananas in one hand,” according to Jayne Stars.

Are the following pictures sillier than the ending to tonight’s Seahawks-Packers game? You decide:

And finally, our personal favorite:

Via Sina

More images here. (H/T Reddit)

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 contestant Wang Yiran crowned the champion, No. 88 contestant Du Nana won the runner-up and No. 37 contestant Mo Yingchen took the third place.

We’re not sure who won “The Best Camera-Shy,” but that’s one individual we’d like to meet. “Best vigor” is tempting as well, though we’re not certain about what “vigor” refers to. (Tilling the fields? Ability to giggle?)

Five more pictures after the jump from People’s Daily’s website. These women are all better than Miss World Yu Wenxia, by the way, aka the woman with one smile.

(H/T Alicia)

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, such as a 3.9-pound goldfish. That’s really fat. “Many factors such as breed and breeding method may affect their size,” Ye said. “A goldfish cannot grow into that size if it suffers any hardship or major illness during the breeding. So it is a very rare one.” And morbidly obese. Youku video for those in China after the jump.

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 here’s how we’re going to do it:

1. The space between the eyes and mouth should be 36 percent of the face’s total length.

2. The height of the individual should be 7.1 times the height of her head.

And the one that really has people talking:

3. The distance between the two nipples should be at least 20 centimeters.

This was reported yesterday by Changjiang Times and Global Times, which adds:

The distance between their pupils should be 46 percent of the distance between each pupil and an ear, according to the report.

“We want the winners to be extremely good-looking,” a staffer with the website who refused to be named, told the Global Times. “We have based our criteria both on the traditional Chinese and more modern Western aesthetic values.”

An organizer said he/she got the metrics from “the Internet.”

People are generally unhappy about this:

@闪心剑客: Check out what the brain-dead college people spend all day doing, then you’ll know why China can’t produce a Harvard, Oxford!

@BenjaminHu: School doesn’t have proper things to do?

@无语_2012: Why is a university selecting a beauty queen?

@加利福尼亚老老丁: Is the distance between nipples really that important? According to what, exactly? Greater than 20 centimeters, less than 20 centimeters, what’s the difference? Furthermore, who’s measuring? Definitely can’t be a man, then it’s a nursemaid who measures? When measuring, do you press against the nipples, or do you leaves space? That’s a dangerous region, eh? In my opinion, domestic beauty pageants are a bit senseless. Looks like more and more aren’t up to standard. I think it’ll be more gimmicky in the future. With monied patrons putting up money, there’ll be lots of gimmicks

And the feminist response:

@迷o猜不透: When we select the most handsome boy, we’ll measure his dick length and width

Of course, the smart-alecks came out as well:

@chen1015834784: Unclear whether you have to wear a bra during measurements? Up to the measuring judges?

@陆逾: The more thrust, the better?

@saving2008: When you go back you should measure whether the fucking breast tools are standard

The winner gets 10,000 yuan ($1,577). So far, “a handful” of women have applied.

(H/T Kevin Collier)

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 claim the crown. Meanwhile, a man named Wei Bi, a “butler to the beauties,” as China Daily calls him, is known by the English name “Maybe.” Yeah. That’s the most interesting tidbit I’ve been able to find from this pageant.

By the way, Paris Hilton was a judge:

Global Times has more pictures of the socialite.

More pictures via the Miss Universe China website:

(H/T Shanghaiist)

This is so lame.

Slightly less lame is the fact that China now holds the Guinness World Record for largest bikini parade. On August 19 in Huluadao, Liaoning province, this happened:

That’s 1,200 people walking 1.8 kilometers in an hour and 30 minutes, according to China News.

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, and the organizer will choose the winners based on milk quality, appearance and pedigree. The first-place prize is 50,000 yuan (US$7,900). Orange Warwick county of the US is also co-sponsoring the pageant.”

The competition was held on Saturday in Shuozhou, Shanxi province, in the hours before Yu took the stage in Ordos. In a rather amusing newscast after the jump, which I’ve subtitled, one model says, “In all my years, this is my first time participating in this kind of event. Also, the type of events I used to participate in were related to cars or ceremonies. But this kind of cow modeling is a first.”

Another notes: “Because I always do these kind of events, we all approach this thing professionally. We don’t feel like we’re here just for hype. Don’t look at us as doing something negative, try to understand from a positive light.” That’s exactly the spirit one needs when crouching down and milking a cow for the camera:

Right. Here are more pictures:

The one in the middle doesn’t look amused.

Finally…

Picture from Baidu forum

And now those videos:

More:
(H/T Hao Hao Report)

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 — remain. And what of their traits? Tall and able to smile, as far as I can tell. Not a total disaster on stage. Not ugly. Everything else — the softball questions about platonic ideals, the two-handed wave, the strut — can be taught.

Yu Wenxia, 23, five-foot-eight (according to MSNBC; her Miss World profile lists her at 177 centimeters), won the Miss World beauty pageant yesterday in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, in an event marred by the city’s ham-handed attempts to restrict journalists from investigating the city. (You’ll not hear about that in any official media reports, of course.) I didn’t watch the show, but this quote from Yu, which appears in several places, about sums up the experience, I think:

“When I was young I felt very lucky because so many people helped me, and I hope in the future I can help more children to feel lucky.”

That is, quite simply, about as cliche-ridden and terrible a sentence you’ll see anywhere.

And here’s a snippet of the finale:

But you know what? Good for her. Let us set aside the fact that beauty pageants are relics of another time, with objectives that ring as hollow as a tin pan, and these days serve more as platforms for male schmoozing and corporate smuttiness. (Has it occurred to anyone to wonder why this “global” event is held in an Inner Mongolia mining town that has mountains of money and glitz but little else? Wait, actually that sounds like the perfect home for the Miss World pageant.) Congratulations to Yu Wenxia, only the second Chinese woman to win the Miss World crown.

If you’re wondering what Yu Wenxia looks like when she’s not smiling, here:

Finally, something I found interesting: Yu’s official introductory video on the Miss World page has been viewed nearly 100,000 times, and it’s gotten 670 dislikes to only 123 likes:

The Youku version of the show’s snippet (longer form) is here:

An extended intro, for those who can stream Youku: