Life as a Fake Beauty Queen in Small-Town China
Meredith Hattam Nov 8 2014, 8:00 AM ET
Preparing for the International Grape Festival in Dunhuang (Maria Kompf)
Most models in these pageants are from Eastern Europe or Latin America, and often everything in their biographies is fictionalized—from home countries, names, and national costumes to elaborate personal stories. In the case of the Ordos pageant, Anna from Brazil was “Annabella” from Chile, while I was “Mary Ann” from America. In another pageant, I had played “Mary, from New York.” I wish I knew my narrative (was I fresh from an upstate farm, or a hardened city girl?), but it was written in Chinese.
“I’ve been Miss Brazil, Miss Poland, and Miss America, and I’m still ****ed I was never Miss Canada,” Lora, a model from Toronto whom I met in Beijing, told me recently. “Some Polish girl got it instead.”
Lora once fell through the stage during dress rehearsal for a pageant in Guangzhou. The runway had been so flimsy that it couldn’t hold her weight in 5-inch heels. “They gave me three days paid vacation after that,” Lora told me. “But I still had to do the pageant.” (The pageant's organizers rebuilt the runway.)
* * *
These pageants echo China’s larger affair with Western knockoffs. In the city of Wuxi, an entire street is lined with stores like H&N, Sffcccks Coffee, and Zare, while fake Apple stores have been shut down in the city of Kunming. Attractive Caucasian men are paid generously (sometimes up to $1,000 a week) to lend validity to new businesses by posing for store openings and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Nor is architecture immune: A replica of Paris lies empty in Tianducheng, while in Beijing, there’s an Amsterdam-like area where roommates of mine traipsed merrily down a cobblestone alley to shoot a Chinese beer commercial.
A farmer near a replica of the Eiffel Tower in Hangzhou's Tianducheng development (Lang Lang/Reuters)
For models, nationality-switching gigs aren’t limited to pageants. A photographer friend of mine relayed a tale of young foreign models hired to stroll up and down the street of a fake Italian villa, greeting potential investors with a cordial buon giorno. According to a model I met in Shanghai, fake Victoria’s Secret fashion shows are also common: The lingerie may be Chinese, but the choreography, wings, and footage are ripped straight from American television. “Sometimes they’re outside in zero degrees,” my friend said. “All it takes is fake wings and underwear.”
Although models are often contractually bound to do these strange jobs, their employment papers are usually as fake as their pageant sashes, leaving them with little legal protection. A work visa is expensive and hard to obtain in China, so agencies often recommend models visit on a tourist visa and work illegally (though China has begun to crack down on the practice—around 60 models with nonwork visas were arrested in Beijing earlier this year). Eager to build a career, models consent to this, winding up in China and similar markets—such as Thailand, Singapore, and Japan—because cities like Milan, New York, and Paris are more competitive.
Many models I met during my time in China were as young as 14, and working to send money home to countries like Russia and Ukraine. As captured in the documentary Girl Model, scouts scour these countries for the next big face, sometimes sending young girls abroad with big dreams and no legal protection.
From a financial perspective, the allure is understandable: The fake pageant queens notwithstanding, models can make hundreds an hour posing for expensive catalogs and Taobao (the Chinese equivalent of Amazon). But even with jobs like that, modeling isn’t lucrative; agencies in China take around 40 percent of your pay, your mother agent back home takes 10 percent, and expenses, including a plane ticket and rent, can reach upwards of $10,000. With their cash flow intact thanks to their few high-earners, most agencies cover some of these expenses, but they also make it hard for models to turn a profit. Leaving with money in your pocket is rare. For more savory jobs, you need to have the right look, at the right time—otherwise you’re stuck paying rent as Miss America.
The going rate for a fake pageant queen? Around 2,000 RMB ($325) a day, almost twice the average monthly salary of an entire Chinese family, which is currently around $175. This means that after a little over a week’s worth of work, a model will have earned what the average Chinese family makes in one year, though she herself will likely take home less than half of that income. The disparity is striking: Young girls being paid to woo wealthy locals and expats to invest in novelty real estate, the likes of which the average Chinese citizen will never, ever obtain. How much are these knockoffs—pageants, Sffcccks, et al—really worth?
* * *
My pageant in Ordos, with Anna, was my most elaborate by far, and its backdrop only made things more surreal. Chinese urban planners developed the city to accommodate China’s ever-growing population, and it’s designed to house 1 million people. But barely anyone has moved in. Instead, it’s a ghost town perched on the edge of the Inner Mongolian plains, its architecture a futuristic fever dream. Giant horse sculptures stand in the shadow of buildings that look like falling dominoes, while the Ordos Museum, an undulating copper orb designed by the architecture firm MAD, glints bizarrely over empty streets.
A scene from a pageant in the desert oasis city of Dunhuang (Maria Kompf)
Our pageant was hosted in the Ordos Grand Theater, which borders the Mongolian plains. We rehearsed for three days straight, struggling to perfect our dance moves in sequined miniskirts and Plexiglas stilettos. With three costume changes, a song and dance routine, and a talent competition, practice was essential.
"Open your eyes and smile, girls!" our choreographer yelled dutifully from the front of the stage. Next to me, a young Ukrainian girl translated this command to her peers. At least half of the 40 or so models in attendance did not speak English.
On the night of our pageant, the theater was nearly empty. A few Ordos residents who had been invited (it was free) clapped idly in the audience. Our pageant mirrored the trademarked international beauty contest, Miss Universe, precisely—complete with national costumes, a talent contest, and the announcement of the top 10 finalists.
In reality, the top 10 had been chosen days before, when we’d piled off a dusty tour bus into the amphitheater where the pageant was held. We’d lined up in rows as a polished woman coordinating the event strolled by, inspecting us closely. Ten were asked to step forward, then five, Anna among them. The winner was kept a secret until the night of the pageant.
And there we were: in the final moments. The chosen five huddled onstage in anticipation, Anna grasping hands with the other finalists in mock excitement. For no discernible reason, footage from a real, American Victoria’s Secret fashion show streamed above us as our host, a tow-headed, middle-aged Westerner-for-hire, pulled an index card from his pocket. Miss Universe, he announced proudly, was Kristina, Miss Montenegro.
I waved at Anna from backstage. Had she wanted to win? Was she disappointed? She laughed, shrugged, and gave me a tiny, pageant-style wave. Wrist left. Wrist right. Then she turned towards the audience, opened her eyes, and smiled wide.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by GeneChing
Man, they should make one inspired by the Vatican, or maybe Mecca. 
