You may have seen all the pretty ladies in pageants. You may have been astonished by their beauty and talents from time to time. You may have been amazed by their creative answers on the TV shows. These candidates from the pageants seem to be unrealistic in such a perfect way. There must be times when you grasp and wish you can meet any of them in person.
What you may have never known is the sacrifices they have made, the tears they have shed and their determination to present their best.
Joy Yang, the second place winner for Miss Chinese in Toronto 2012, had told me the stories beyond my expectation.
“I wanted to gain a different experience in life.”
Joy’s motivation was with a simple reason. Her friend recommended her to join the Miss Chinese Toronto Pageant. Joy thought she would challenge herself to take this opportunity to learn and explore the real world.
Miss Chinese Toronto Pageant is an annual beauty pageant organized by Fairchild TV. The purpose of the event is to select Toronto’s representative for the Miss Chinese International Pageant. The winner can sign a contract with Fairchild TV. Other contestants may also have the opportunity for entering the entertainment industry and sign contracts with Fairchild TV.
On the day of the final, Joy’s performance on the stage was fantastic and humorous. In one section of the pageant, she had to make a logical story in 30 seconds using durian, a camera and hedgehog. It was a great challenge to come up with a story in such a short time. Considering that in such pageants when stereotypical answers mostly relate to topics such as “world peace” Joy handled the situation differently and wisely.
“I was eating a durian under a tree. A hedgehog came and started eating my durian. So, I grabbed my camera and took a shot of that moment.”
The story was funny. It put smiles on people and attracted the audience to her. She had a unique charisma among the candidates. Perhaps, her humor was one of the reasons that made her stand out in the judges’ eyes. In a huge pageant event in the Toronto Chinese community, second place may be out of reach for a lot of girls. However, Joy did it.
“I did not expect myself to achieve this. A lot of the contestants were a lot more attractive than I am. I was shocked and my mind went blank when I heard my name.”
“I felt I was burning out” Joy reflected on her experience.
When Joy was in the Top Ten, it was mandatory for every candidate to participate in rehearsals and in filming promotion videos for the final day of the event. Joy lived in downtown Toronto, which was about two hours away to the rehearsing studio by public transit. She had to wake up at 5 a.m. to arrive on time at 8 a.m. and getting back home at 12 a.m. was considered early. During this intense situation, Joy was also a student at OCAD University. She had to balance school work and the pageant at the same time.
Also, for television screens always make people look bigger than their actual appearance, Joy was asked by one of the designers to lose weight while she was only 125 lbs. Joy was considered slim already. However, to achieve what the designer wanted, Joy started an unbelievable diet plan that dropped almost 18 lbs. of her weight in three months.
She stopped eating after 6 p.m. For dinner, she normally had a small bowl of broccoli. On top of that, she pushed herself to exercise almost every day to burn calories faster. Her self-discipline efforts on the challenges were for one purpose – to present herself at her best on the day of the final.
About one month before the day of the final, Joy heard a piece of shocking news from her mother. One day, Joy’s mother experienced an extreme ache in her belly and she was sent to the emergency room. Later on, she was diagnosed with a problem that may remain sealed from the public. Joy’s mother was in the hospital for recovery therefore she was not able to attain and see her little girl shine on the stage.
Joy has a very close relationship with her mother. There were times when they could barely make a living. There were times when they starved and wondered what would happen the next day. During those hardships, they had always held each other’s hand and gone through the difficulties. Furthermore, they are like best friends to each other. They would share and discuss about everything. Every time when Joy was depressed, her mother would cheer her up. Joy would do the same thing for her mother as well.
Joy wept many nights. After being notified as one of the top ten candidates, Joy immediately shared the great news with her mother. Also, her mother promised that she would come to Toronto and attain the event to cheer for her beloved daughter. Hence, after Joy found out what happened to her mother, she was extremely worried. Although Joy’s heart urged to instantly fly to her mother and see her, the amount of work from school and the pageant held her tight in Toronto.
“I did not know what to do anymore. Everything around me seemed to be collapsing.”
While looking back on the experience, Joy frowned and smiled. Instead of allowing the feelings to make her powerless, Joy turned it into one of the powerful motives to perform well on the stage. Her participation for the event became more than having fun. She wanted to comfort her mother with action by showing that she could take care of herself. So that her mother, while under recovery, would be happy for her achievement.
At the end, Joy’s achievement says it all.
This is a form of love from a daughter to a mother.
I have personally known Joy for years. By seeing her going through different phases during the pageant, she has grown and changed a lot since the first time we met. She now has the charisma that mature attractive ladies would have. Especially when she was notified that her mother could not attend on the day of the final for Joy, she seemed exhausted. Many of her friends had cheered for her and supported her, even took care of her dog when needed. Through her story, I learned that the pageant participants paid extremely high prices to stand on the stage. I truly respect their efforts. As a friend, I am sincerely happy for Joy.
On the day of the final, with a JOYful smile she was standing at the second place.
Ever since Kinton Ramen’s success last year, Japanese restaurants have been opening massively. Here is another Izakaya, Japanese beer house, that is worthy to be introduced.
Solomon's Mind 