China Law Blog

Yeah, I think China once again feels it is not getting its deserved respect and is hotly jealous of the award to Miss Latina.

Asian girls are beautiful, but Latin girls...oh my!

The Miss World event was held in Sanya for the third or fourth time in a row. If there would be a connection to the event being held in China, Miss China should have won a few years ago already.

Wow... I completely expected a lengthy analysis on the meaning and worldwide repercussions. That was mean. (j/k)

nh,

For once, you have left me without a retort.

Marc,

I had no idea.

Pete,

Sorry. Tongue in cheek. Maybe next year.

Chris D-E,

We speak only American English on this blog.

I think she is beautiful, and I think it is time that people of the world reconize that there is beauty in asia.
I myself can't wait to see how China grows as a country to except the new but I hope they don't lose their rich past.
And yes, this is coming from a westerner.

Yes, Marc, and if I do remember that Chinese contestants consistently made it into the top 5 or 3, but always beaten by a Latina.

Anyways, too bad all of you permanent China expats can't enjoy Telemundo or Univision soap operas and newscasts.

It's about time. It is not something just the whites, blacks, latinos and Indians can claim, finally.

I have to think her victory is somehow connected to the event being held in China

Say it ain't so?

Chris D-E and NH: My son is engaged to a Latin American girl, so you fellows all must know something! I'm impartial I am unimpressed with Ms. World; too cutesy, too skinny, and I've known way more attractive ladies in China. This chick can't hold a candle to Gong Li, although I haven't been fortunate enough to know her.

It looks even fishier when you consider that Miss Angola came in second, and Angola is one of the biggest suppliers of Oil to China, if not the biggest.

@Todd;

Gong Li is a talented actress and hot to boot. Dating Zhong Yi Mou early in both of their careers didn't hurt either. But tall and thin represents the "ideal" that Beijing promotes. Just like all of the tall, thin girls that do the "minority dances" on various CCTV programs (despite the fact that most of China's occupied..er, minorities are dark skinned and the Manchurians are simply banned for contributing to China's humiliation and beating up the Han in the Ming Dynasty).
Like all of the tall, blond, blue eyed Germans way back in, well you know (and I'm not picking on Germans, but everyone knows what I'm referring to).

I'd also like to point out that beautiful Korean and Japanese girls do not make it into the finals (the Japanese contestant probably already has her bags packed on the day of the competition). No Bollywood hotties? Their curves are the among the few that can compete with the Latinas and that Bollywood dancing ain't bad either.

http://www.actionext.com/names_t/the_vandals_lyrics/master_race_in_outer_space.html

I see no bond between the event being held in China and the nationality of the winner. I am no big fan of these events but it hit me because she's chinese and I get all the Chinese news there is, when I can. There is something interesting that happens when an event occurs in which you identify yourself let's say Chavez losing at the referendum. That, you talk about. If you are no model or had no experiencing in catwalking at all, you will more likely see no consequence of the event (miss world?) in your day. I will tell you why there is nothing to say in the "global ripercussions" on this nomination: the Chinese are going to point it out in a silly manner because they are not used to these things and the media is totally new in this respect - and the rest of the world doesn't even give a damn about it but for 20 minutes. As in a blog. Nothing new, just plain image and nothing starts off from here. Miss Italia was black some years ago. No one blinked an eye than for 2 minutes. Too much emphasis to beauty contests. And yes, they're too skinny.

Chris, Yes, congratulations are definitely in order, since she bested many competitors. As they say in the South here, "It's all good."

Chris -

What's stupid is your comment. You should know more than anyone else that smart Western executives tend to lose all perspective when they get to China. The are taken to dinner where heavy drinking is encouraged. They are shown "the lovely ladies" and at the end are easily impressed. The next thing you know, they are sinking millions into a joint venture that has ZERO chance of success. Is it possible that these judges were influenced by the fact that the event was held in China as opposed to another country - of course.

Another thing that is "stupid" (your word). How can China having 20% of the world's population possibly make any difference? China was just ONE country out of more than TWO HUNDRED contestants. Those are some pretty long odds.

And if you think this woman was the most beautiful that China has to offer, you should get outdoors more often. You'll find more attractive girls at the post office on any given morning, or else the bank, the bus stop, the shopping mall.

I'd think it's a matter of taste; fex, consider the New York Times Magazine article in '94 (I was 6 then, I only recently discovered in Google) on the Chinese art scene; one artist mentions that China's biggest export would probably be ugly girls; no offense to those married to the locals, but apparently Chinese standards of beauty are different.

Nanhe, so you're accusing Zhongnanhai of being Nazis because they favor girls who are aesthetically, not sexually, appealing?

Feminists, since at least the late 1960s, have drawn attention to the way that beauty contests objectify women, noting that they constitute a particular kind of politics, in that they are symbolic of the various regulatory and discriminatory acts of a sexist society. Objectifying and evaluating a woman's physical appearance (which of course constitutes the central focus of such contests) has, as Katherine McCaffrey has explained, "been interpreted by many as a microcosm of the way patriarchal societies regulate and monitor women's bodies more generally." Largely as a consequence of such criticisms, beauty contests like this one now tend to appropriate liberal feminist rhetoric in terms of equal opportunity, access and tolerance, adjusting their format to celebrate ethnic diversity, etc.

Still, beauty contests nevertheless continue to remain dedicated to the objectification of women's bodies, so the stated goals and objectives of their organisers are clearly contradictory and conflicted.

To the great Chinese diaspora though, a Chinese Miss World winner is something to celebrate, as it symbolises not only China's increased integration into the global cultural economy, but also it provides some international recognition of the value of Chineseness, of female Chinese beauty. It's symbolic of China's ability to compete with the world's best, with implications beyond the realm of mere beauty contests.

I don't know whether the organisers and or judges of this event chose a Chinese contestant as the winner because they wanted to help promote next years Beijing Olympics, which is what some have suggested here. I think it possible, but highly unlikely.

But her crowning, for many, does indeed, I think, have some deep meaning (especially for many Chinese) though I agree that it will have no worldwide repercussions whatsoever.

@Inst:

"Nanhe, so you're accusing Zhongnanhai of being Nazis because they favor girls who are aesthetically, not sexually, appealing?"

ZNH applies similar "asthetics" to the military units it allows to go internationally for image building and for receiving foreign dignitaries. All tall, all light skinned.

Yet when you see pics of typical PLA soldiers doing field drills, they look alot more like peasant guys (shorter, darker skinned).

I simply cannot bite my tongue and fail to comment on this one. "Bollywood hotties" competing against "Latina curves", is Miss World 2007 "too skinny"? Are Chinese 'imports" ugly? Are they better than "Latin chicks"? Oh deary me! Sorry to intrude on this blokey conversation, masturbatory as it is, but this pathetic sexism you all dare to exhibit here on this very public of spaces needs to be challenged, and with an iron fist.

It deeply saddens me the way this world continues to demand "feminine" behaviour from women, constructing them in opposition to men as the assumed dominant sex. There is no biological or psychological necessity for this. Becoming a woman means being indoctrinated into a certain code of behaviour that can and should be resisted. Women are schooled into constructing their bodies as objects of male desire, and so-called "beauty" contests like the Miss World competition merely helps to promote the continuation and flourishing of this kind of schooling.

Cultures are founded on legitimised power rather than on notions of truth, justice and what is natural, and so patriarchal discourse survives only because, at base, it is structured on the unequal power relations that currently exist between the sexes. It's about time then, that the women of the world unite to challenge this situation, and to smash this kind of inequality. It sickens me to see women like Zhang Zilin even participating in this kind of spectacle. Rather than aiding the enemy, she ought to help assert a gynotext to challenge the male view of women.

Mr. Harris, while I am pleased to read that at least one of your readers here had the decency to acknowledge the sexism of this contest, rather than joining in on the puerile banter, I must note too that the said commentator also asserted the symbolism for the Chinese in having one of their kind win this title, as having some kind of mitigating effect. As if such a contest could ever possibly be justified! Mr. Jones' moral relativism, I'm afraid, is equally preposterous in my opinion.

As for you, Mr. Harris, I ask this of you: why post such demeaning trivia on a blog that is supposed to be concerned with issues of Chinese law? No wonder I have been unable to identify many female contributors to this site - you run it as a little boy's club. What next? A weekly booby pic to attract readers? Girl of the week perhaps, for you sad little boys to get all excited over and to compare childish notes on?

Mildred,

First off, I am happy (that is the right word) you commented.

You make some very good points, but you go overboard.

Please do not condemn me for the comments made above. That is not fair.

I agree with you that these competitions are a sexist waste of time. I did not watch this one and I do not watch other ones.

But, I very much resent your calling this site a boys' club as there have been many female commenters and I know we have many female readers. Thankfully.

I did this post for fun (not all posts have to be serious) and because Ms. China winning this competition is news, whether you and I like it or not. I did not run it as an opportunity for some to compare notes on the looks of various countries' females and you will note I never joined in. I included a picture of Ms. China because (like it or not) her being chosen as Ms. China and subsequently as Ms. World was based (at least in part) on her looks.

At the same time, I hardly need remind you that sex is rather omnipresent in the world today and I am not going to block a comment simply because I disagree with it or even find it inappropriate.

Since starting this blog I can count on one hand the comments I have blocked and those were on the following:

1. A completely unprovoked vile comment against the Catholic church.

2. A comment filled with vitriol against Africans.

3. A comment perpetrating stereotypes against Uigyhurs.

4. A comment that somone of whom I had written had left China owing everyone money.

That's about it.

I comment on the world as it is, not the world as some would like it to be.

Mr. Harris, I thank you for your polite response, however, I am not at all satisfied with your excuses.

You claim now that you did not join in with the sexist banter by comparing notes. What short memory you seem to have. When the contributor who calls himself nanheyangrouchuan wrote, "Asian girls are beautiful, but Latin girls...oh my!" you responded by saying, "For once, you have left me without a retort." In other words, you expressed agreement with him that although Asian girls are beautiful Latin girls are somehow superior.

Even if you hadn't expressed any such childish solidarity with the mob, you have nevertheless hosted a sexist discussion on "your" blog, which occupies a public space. You may have a legal right to do so, but I find your doing so to be ethically questionable, to say the least, and that's putting it in the politest fashion manageable. Occupying a public space entails responsibility - social responsibility.

Your justification for inviting this discussion on Miss Zhang's win - that you did so merely because her win is topical, that it's news, and that because sex is so "omnipresent in the world today" that there is no point in you disallowing such inappropriate discussions from taking place on "your" blog - I find this line of reasoning to be along the same fundamental lines as Mr.Jones' remark. I have no time for such moral relativism. One either knowingly chooses to do what is morally right, or one doesn't. There can be no sitting on the fence, I'm afraid. Fence-sitters are those who refuse to make a moral choice, to take a stand in favour of what is either wrong or right. Inaction then, can only ever amount to a tacit compliance with those who do wrong. In my grandparent's day, this kind of person, the fence-sitter, was usually referred to as a coward.

Mildred,

I didn't make any excuses.

"What short memory you seem to have. When the contributor who calls himself nanheyangrouchuan wrote, "Asian girls are beautiful, but Latin girls...oh my!" you responded by saying, "For once, you have left me without a retort." In other words, you expressed agreement with him that although Asian girls are beautiful Latin girls are somehow superior."

I typically disagree with NH, but I simply had nothing to say regarding his comparing Asian women with Latin women. I had nothing to say because I find such broad comparisions a bit strange, not because I either agreed or disagreed with him.

I agree to having some social responsibility with this blog, but I disagree that my allowing the above comments violated that responsibility. I am too firm a believer in the marketplace of ideas to block a comment simply because I do not like it. I just will not do it. Sorry. Discourse comes about good taste. As I mentioned previously, I rarely block.

I am not sitting on any fences here. I make no apologies for covering this big event. Does one who covers a murder condone it? Of course not. You are getting a bit silly here. It reminds me of a story of a friend of mine who toured Thomas Jefferson's estate, including the slave quarters. At the end of the tour, someone complained how the tour guide had not condemned slavery.

There is a time and a place for everything and this is neither the time nor the place for me to express my views on beauty pageants (not that my views on them are particularly well formed). Frankly, I don't see why anyone should care what some China lawyer has to say regarding the social value (or lack thereof) of beauty pageants anyway. Why do you care?

Dear Mildred - you seem to have read way too much into my comments. Please show me where I claimed that the Chinese response to Zhang Zilin's win ought to be used as a mitigating factor when evaluating the nature of the beauty contest. You can't, can you? That's because I didn't make any such assertion in the first place.

I simply brought to attention the feminist reading of beauty contests, whilst pointing out the emprically-verifiable fact that the Chinese, in general, tend to view Zhang's win as symbolic of China's new place and status in the world. Nothing more. Please kindly refrain in future from reading into my comments anything more than what I actually do in fact say.

Mildred, I agree 100 percent with your analysis of the sexist nature of beauty contests, but your arguments about moral action I take strong issue with. By arguing that one must ALWAYS necessarily take sides, you are introducing Will into Reason, which as Adorno and Horkheimer argued in their Dialectics of Enlightenment, can lead quite quickly to fascism: "Where scientific rationality was initially used to attack religious, superstitious and mythical dogma in the name of free inquiry, tolerance and an open society, soon enough scientific rationality was unleashed against those ethical values that had inspired its use in the first place. 'Knowledge' became divorced from 'information', norms from facts, and the scientific method increasingly freed from any commitment to liberation, transformed nature into an object of domination. Reason, once the great liberating force, became 'instrumental'."

When viewed this way, Mildred, the Enlightenment, of which the specific brand of feminism that you seem to espouse is very much a product of, can be seen as "the progenitor of a society in which the manipulation of others by an all powerful state represents the high point of rationality, in which human subjectivity and individualism and creativity are necessarily squashed in the name of efficiency and instrumentality. Not liberation but the concentration camp, where inmates find themselves reduced to the numbers tattooed on their arms, becomes the logical extension of the Enlightenment. Its legacy is therefore not the promised progress, but barbarism and the subordination of subjectivity to the 'culture industry', capitalist forms of thinking and the 'totally administered society'."

Whereas many see the Enlightenment as the movement towards freedom and democracy, I agree with Adorno, who sees it as leading to the development of modern states, which in turn develop systems of control and bureaucratic administration that extend greater and greater control over the individual.

Mildred, we live in a world of paradox, and so Enlightenment needs to recognise such paradox in order to be truly enlightened. Reason, to be reasonable, must counterbalance itself with its opposite. This is a universal phenomenon - there is never any unity without internal opposition.

Without such internal opposition, Reason itself simply becomes a question of power: the object of Enlightenment knowledge and morality simply subjects the Other to itself. When, for example, English farmers occupied Native American lands upon arrival at Plymouth, they stripped away from Nature its aura of mystery, the sacredness with which Native Americans invested in it - values which we today could benefit greatly from.

As Yvonne Sherratt points out in her book, Adorno's Positive Dialectic, "Enlightenment to be enlightened, needs Subjects who can communicate rationally, and to do so, they need not attempt to transcend their own humanity, but rather, they need to be so intensely receptive to their world that they can be, in one moment fully rational and in the other, fully absorbed." Failure to do so in my view can only result in the formation of views that are fundamentally ethnocentric, and that are hence potentially dangerous.

Mildred, by insisting that one necessarily needs to take sides, that one necessarily needs to subject the Other to itself, by insisting that the Other is morally wrong, and therefore in need of challenge, or of crushing, moral reasoning itself simply becomes a question of power - something which you yourself have already identified as being instrumental in the oppression of women.

One must be rational, yes, by recognising that beauty contests are inherently sexist in the way that they objectify the female body, but one must also be receptive to the way that Others, like the Chinese for example, interpret or receive events such as Zhang Zilin's winning of the Miss World competition - they do so from a cultural and historical point of view still tinged with the legacies of colonialism.

A moral course of action that insists on the silencing or crushing of the Other is hardly progressive, or even moral in my opinion. It is downright arrogant and irrational, and relies on one's own positioning of power to enforce, a discourse that, as I said, can lead to such extremes as fascism.

You may still like to insist that my reasoning produces little more than a moral relativism. But I'm charging you with ethnocentrism.

Best regards to you Mildred,
Mark Anthony Jones

Dan - you ask Mildred why she cares, why she is making such an issue out of our supposed "moral relativism".

Her inflated sense of Ego, I suggest, may have something to do with her willful intervention.

"In other words, you expressed agreement with him that although Asian girls are beautiful Latin girls are somehow superior."

For the record, there is nothing I said to indicate "superiority" in the sense that most people refer to (physical, mental, etc). Latin culture promotes some things better than any other and those that have no exposure to it wouldn't understand. Well, here's something to chew on, in both the US and China, what kinds of dance classes are the most popular?

'nuff said.

Mr. Harris, again, I simply cannot accept your kind of moral relativism. You say you believe in the "marketplace" of ideas too much to block comments or to disallow allowing certain topics of discussion from taking place on "your" blog. If the discussion switched to the topic of say, the pleasures of raping women, or on how to manufacture a home-made bomb, or on where men can most easily find underaged girls to sexually exploit - if any of these topics entered your "marketplace", your showcase for the market, would you still remain silent? Would you tacitly support the right of your readers to openly discuss such views? If your answer is "no" then why the inconsistency? Why allow your readers to indulge in such masturbatory banter, in such crude and sexist discussion in the first place? Should all topics be tolerated in the interests of maintaining freedom of expression? If your answer is "no", then why should sexist discussions be acceptable?

Mr. Jones, after considering very carefully your detailed response, I now regard you a little more highly, or at least I would have had you not attacked me for having a huge Ego. I could quite quite easily level the same charge at you.

Your argument that one must be receptive to the views of Others essentially amounts to tolerating unsavioury views. If one was to take your argument to its logical extreme, one would need to tolerate all kinds of things - justifications for all kinds of human rights abuses, attacks against women, rape of the environment. Again, like Mr. Harris, you are a moral relativist, which I see as being highly problematic.

And trying to equate feminist discourse with fascism is outrageous!

Mr. Nanheyangrouchuan, Latin culture promotes what better exactly? The sexualisation of women's bodies through exotic dance, etc? So that allows you the right to publicly compare the quality (or desirability) of Latin women with Asian women then does it?

It was you in fact, who suggested that Bollywood girls "are the among the few that can compete with the Latinas" thanks to their "curves". Now you are trying to say that you had said nothing of the superiority of one over the other. You quite clearly made a comparison, and you quite clearly implied that Latin girls are superior to Asian girls, as Latin girls you say, have, in your opinion, better "curves" and are better dances. Why are they better dances? Because their culture, you say, "promotes" the sexualisation of the female body through dance. This allows men like you to more easily objectify and to fetishise the bodies of Latino girls, it makes it easier for you to masturbate over a the image or sight of a Latin girl than an Asian girl - which is why you prefer Latinos over Asians. This I'm afraid, makes you a racist as well as a sexist.

Mildred,

You are way off base.

You are right that I would block comments on "the pleasures of raping women, or on how to manufacture a home-made bomb, or on where men can most easily find underaged girls to sexually exploit" but my allowing comments on a beauty pageant does not constitute moral relativism or if it does, I do not care. I have to draw the line somewhere and wherever I draw it there will be those who object. I cannot worry about that.

Your certainty actually scares me and I suspect it was that which caused MAJ to dub you as being fascistic.

Dear Mildred - I did NOT equate feminism with fascism. My argument is that the introduction of Will into Reason can lead to fascism.

Being receptive to the views of others does not mean that one MUST ALWAYS tolerate the "unsavioury" - common sense and balance should of course be exercised. The need to maintain freedom of expression needs to be balanced out against the need to protect people within the community. Finding the right balance is not easy, and what constitutes the best balance will differ over time, and from culture to culture.

Preventing a discussion from taking place that encourages rape is the morally right thing to do - if one holds true the values espoused by the European Enlightenment. Here, I endorse the introduction of Will into Reason. I do not endorse the introduction of Will into Reason when it comes to regulating an online discussion that is, by any measure, fundamentally sexist in the way that is compares the contestants of a beauty contest. This level of discussion falls into quite a different class from that of one endorsing rape. If society was to be this fanatical, how stale and stagnant all our lives would be! I do not want the return of Puritanism. Why should YOUR Will be introduced to YOUR Reason? And why should YOUR Reason be enforced on all in society? Why shouldn't the Chinese perspective on Zhang's win not be open to discussion? Why should I be labelled a moral relativist simply for having noted this perspective in a discussion on a blog? You're being absolutely ridiculous, and you must surely know it!

I can't believe how many posts there are on a beauty pageant, on a law blog. The winner is a beautiful Chinese girl and has a great figure. You guys all need a life.

MAJ,

I concur.

Andy,

I think everyone just wanted to prove me wrong about there being no repercussions.

Dear Mildred et al.: this is one of the funniest collection of posts I've read in a while. For the record, I don't even know what a woman looks like. I just landed from Pluto.

@mildred;

You obviously feel threatened by the concept of "sexuality". Men can be attracted to a plain girl who has the right attitude about herself and "wears it well", that is "sexuality".

Not to say Asian girls are less "sexual", but the cultural norms tend to disuade that kind of behavior while Latin culture promotes it. And I doubt you protest the promotion of Latin male sexuality via Antonio Banderos or Enrique Iglesias.

Now about bodies, from time to time, Xinhua promotes "Asian" beauty as being fairly flat in the back and front and Zhang ZiYi is held up as a prime example. Beijing is always trying to push an alternative that it approves of for political reasons.

Men like certain kinds of curves because curves trigger primitive assessments of superior child rearing and physical strength attributes, this has been proven in quite a few recent scientific studies about human sexuality.

Wow, it's a beauty contest... let's keep it simple, please~

"tall and thin represents the 'ideal' that Beijing promotes...Xinhua promotes 'Asian' beauty as being fairly flat in the back and front"

I agree that Beijing has a lot to do with "political reasons" but believe me the "fairly flat" icon is more a result of Kate Moss legendary rather than xinhua authority. And even with American pop so overwhelming today, Lucy Liu's face still puzzles the majority over there however hot she is in Hollywood... can you imagine how much ZNH could put their finger on the fashion and beauty industry? And it's way off to count on Miss Angola for oil supply. More repercussions... I guess there is a kind of relief in China that for the first time or two an Asian/Chinese figure be recognized as internationally pretty without having to meet the Western image of "Asian cuttie". Would that contribute to the growing nationalism? Hard to say and hopefully not... again let's keep it simple...

Zhang just happens to be a Miss World who falls into the category of Chinese version sweetheart, well, sort of. Yes call me narrow-minded Chinese. And for the record, here is her blog http://v35.blog.sina.com.cn/zhangzilin