By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, May 28: Four young Tibetan women are competing for this year’s Miss Tibet crown, the organiser of the Tibetan beauty pageant has announced Saturday during a press conference in the Indian city of Chandigarh.
Yangchen Metok, 19, from Dharamsala, Rinchen Choden, 25, from Bangalore, Tenzin Namchoe, 22, from Bangalore and Tenzin Norzom 23, from Varanasi are the four contenders for this year’s Tibetan beauty title.
“This year’s pageant is officially called Kingfisher Miss Tibet Pageant 2010, as KF is the sponsor of the pageant,” the director of the beauty pageant Mr Lobsang Wangyal told Phayul over the phone from Chandigarh.
“This year we have also tied up with an entertainment company called Can & Able based here in Chadigarh in order to give the pageant a more professional touch,” Lobsang said.
As usual, the four girls will go through seven rounds of competitions in three day’s time to claim this year’s Tibetan beauty title, the ninth in a series started by Lobsang Wangyal Productions since 2002.
The contenders will undergo a week-long training-cum-grooming session before entering into the competition rounds next week.
Competition rounds will kick-start on Friday with a swimsuit round at a local resort here in Dharamsala. It will be followed by “Talk and Talent Rounds” on Saturday at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) here. The remaining four rounds — Introduction, Evening Gown, Traditional Costume and Interview rounds — will be held on “Grand Finale Round” on Sunday also at TIPA.
The winner will receive rupees 100,000 (USD 2,200.00 approx). The first runner-up will receive rupees 50,000 and the second runner-up will receive rupees 25,000, Lobsang confirms.
Despite its share of popularity in the exile Tibetan community and its successive editions over the years, the number of participants for the beauty pageant has not gone up as expected by the organizers. Like this year, there were only four participants last year. At times the pageant struggled itself to survive witnessing only a single participant, as it was the case in 2003 and 2005 when the crown winners did not have to face any contender.
Lobsang says he has made all the efforts from his side to add more contending beauties to his show. He claims of receiving as many more applicants, but there hasn’t been more than six contestants in any of the beauty pageants he has organised so far.
Lobsang’s Miss Tibet pageant is small but has been fairly controversial too. Since it was first started in 2002, Lobsang faced criticism for the beauty pageant from some sections, including the prime minister Samdhong Rinpoche, who said it was “un-Tibetan” and “aping western culture”.
Not surprisingly, the contest has also irritated the Chinese Communist government, whose troops began occupying Tibet in 1949. In the past winners of Miss Tibet were forced to withdraw from international beauty pageants after objections from the Chinese government.
All these have given Miss Tibet its much needed media attention and with it its share of success on the international stage, thereby throwing some spotlight on the Tibetan situation too.
Lobsang says he has opted to keep this year’s beauty pageant a low-profile one considering the tragic earthquake that struck Kyegudo region in Tibet last month.
“Instead of firecrackers there will be prayers,” Lobsang says.
