My Beautiful Life: Gong Xuehua's Beauty Pageant Journey

Author: Gong Xuehua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: She is a beautiful woman of China, a flower in Shanghai, a woman who made Clinton stop and stare; she is a champion of beauty pageants in Paris after opening the country's doors; she is a Miss Asia who broke the age limit and created a myth; she is a Chinese woman who raised the five-star red flag to participate in the Miss World Mrs. pageant in the United States and won a major award. Some people's lives are legendary, and legendary people are always imaginative and restless. She experienced a life others had never lived, leaping from one miracle to another. Life is like a fire and lightning in a story, and against the backdrop of lightning and fire, a legendary life shines even brighter! Legendary people are not ordinary mortals, so they are not happy people, but perhaps enviable people. Only by the grace of the Buddha can a person accidentally become legendary. For about twenty years, no woman in contemporary Shanghai has been able to appear in beauty pageants in Paris, Hong Kong before returning to the motherland, and Las Vegas, successively in her prime, as Gong Xuehua has. At nearly or even past forty, she left her mark on the dazzling stage, giving TV audiences and newspaper readers a series of sensational performances and aesthetics, and leaving so much discussion, speculation, and reflection. Since ancient times, the Chinese nation has been very good at praising and appreciating the beauty of women: Diaochan admiring the moon with her closed-moon face, Zhaojun leaving the frontier with her falling goose manner, the empress drinking wine with her flower-blushing appearance, Xi Shi washing silk with her fish-sinking beauty, all becoming the classic beauty of Chinese women for a thousand years. However, the beauty of Chinese women that has been passed down often coincides with politics, the world, and the fate of the country. The different backgrounds of the four great beauties are a reflection of the rise and fall of the times, indicating that the beauty of women back then could either endure humiliation and charm enemies to save the country or please the king with flattery, leading to chaos and ruin, leaving later generations with insights into the connection between beauty and humiliation, beauty and chaos, and making people often show a gaze of admiration for beauty in public for many years. So, until 1993, the "China News Award" was still given to an article written by a female student from Peking University titled "Peking University Girls Refuse to Participate in Beauty Pageants," and the All-China Women's Federation expressed opposition to holding beauty pageants. At that time, the brave and confident Gong Xuehua, after participating in a Chinese beauty pageant in Paris, unexpectedly, against the imagination of both those who knew and those who didn't, stepped into the Miss Asia pageant in Hong Kong. The,, stirred up a series of storms. In the midst of it, Gong Xuehua sometimes flowed with the current and sometimes rowed against it, sometimes facing reporters' sharp questions with a broad smile, and sometimes turning her back on those digging into her private life. Wherever she went, there was a whirl of excitement and buzz. As a result, Gong Xuehua insisted on participating in beauty pageants out of beauty, and because of the pageants, some people deliberately created a fuss around her. On one hand, she had to fully display her beauty in appearance and figure, and on the other hand, she had to hide the grievances and private affairs that made her even more beautiful. In this process of revealing and concealing, her unprecedentedly sensational life began, and many years later, this book was born. In fact, beauty pageants are not just about one woman winning the crown with her natural beauty, but also about sharp wit, broad knowledge, and the courage to dare and advance. Gong Xuehua, a Shanghai woman who is beautiful in the right way, won consecutively in the beauty pageants in Paris, Hong Kong, and Las Vegas, showing her beauty, intelligence, nobility, and elegance to the world. Although it may not directly enhance the image of women in Shanghai and China, it at least spreads the beauty of Shanghai's maritime culture and the educational beauty of women, as well as the atmosphere of an open and tolerant Chinese society. These jokes and reflections can be found and remembered by reading Gong Xuehua's book. In this book, Gong Xuehua reviews her three beauty pageant experiences—winning the title of Miss Chinese Overseas in France in the 1980s, entering the final round of the Miss Asia contest in Hong Kong at the age of "47" in 1995, and receiving the "Best National Costume Award" at the Miss World Mrs. pageant in Las Vegas in 2000—to share her secrets to winning beauty pageants.