Miss Tibet: 2016

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Miss Tibet Pageant director Lobsang Wangyal, and the 2016 contestants Dechen Wangmo, Tenzin Dawa, Tenzing Sangyi, and Tenzing Dickey

Minnesota’s MPR News described the contest that Lobsang Wangyal has been bravely organising every year since 2002 as ‘a survival tool for exiles.’ Indpaedia is taking the message of the Miss Tibet (in exile) pageant forward in its own humble way. We have not only sourced the archives of Miss Tibet.com, we have also sought out all sensitive accounts about this annual celebration of Tibetanness. If you have any articles or photographs about this pageant (or any aspect of the Tibetans’ life in exile), could you please send them as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com? All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name. Tibet-related pages on Indpaedia are edited by the author of Tibet: 50 years after, the Preface of which was written by HH the Dalai Lama.

From Chinese jail to Miss Tibet pageant

Miss Tibet Tenzing Sangnyi at the Nechung Monastery temple

Miss Tibet 2016 contestant Dechen Wangmo

Miss Tibet 2016 contestant Tenzin Dawa
Photo: Matthew Aslett

Miss Tibet 2016 contestant Tenzing Sangnyi

Miss Tibet 2016 contestant Tenzing Dickey
Photo: Matthew Aslett

From Chinese jail to Miss Tibet pageant | October 16, 2006 |Gulf News | Reuters

Three years ago, at the tender age of 17, Metok Lhazey sat in solitary confinement in a pitch dark, filthy and horribly cramped Chinese prison cell in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.

This week, the nervous 20-year-old is dreaming of being crowned Miss Tibet in a small but controversial beauty pageant held by Tibetan refugees in northern India.

"My main motive is to push the Tibetan cause all over the world, because I know what is going on in Tibet," she said in her hotel room as she prepared for the contest, plastic beads in her hair and blue bangles on her wrists.

The Miss Tibet beauty pageant is in its fifth year, a budget contest in the small town of McLeodganj that attracts only a handful of contestants but plenty of controversy.

This year, a cosmeticist from Toronto in Canada, two students from India and one from Nepal make up the field.

Not surprisingly, the contest has irritated the Chinese, whose troops entered Tibet in 1950 and abhor the refugees' "splittist" agenda.

No recognition

The reigning Miss Tibet was forced to withdraw from medium-level beauty pageants in Zimbabwe and Malaysia last year after objections from China, organisers say.

It has also irked conservative Tibetan Buddhists - the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile here once famously called it "un-Tibetan" and "aping Western culture".

This year it even managed to irritate the Indians - one young woman serving with a high-altitude Tibetan unit in the Indian army was forced to withdraw on the eve of the contest.

In an attempt to generate a little more publicity, the organisers threw the controversial "swimwear round" open for public viewing for the first time this year. The Tibetan Women's Association expresses the ambivalence of many older Tibetans.

Anything that promotes the Tibetan cause is worth supporting, says president B. Tsering, even if she draws the line at Tibetan girls parading around in bikinis to a crowd of leering men.

"There are a few things we can take from other cultures, and some we can make do without," she said.

In truth, the girls looked a bit uncomfortable as they came on stage in bikinis on Friday and were then presented with a microphone to talk politics and Tibet. But they all insist they are happy to demonstrate they have the body of a beauty queen.

"Culture is not like stagnant water that remains in a pool," Lhazey said. "It is like a flowing river, it keeps on evolving, and Tibetan women should go along with this."

Lhazey first fled Tibet in 1999, making the gruelling trek across the Himalayas near the route where at least one refugee girl was reportedly shot by Chinese border guards last month.

She returned to Lhasa when her father grew ill, but did not make it in time to see him before he died. Instead she says she spent three weeks in small jails at Chinese checkpoints on the road to Lhasa, often beaten as she was interrogated about her links to the government-in-exile in India.

Later she was jailed for more than a month in Lhasa before escaping again two years ago.

True Tibetan

With her solid cheekbones and rosy cheeks she seems the most "Tibetan" of the girls. She is the only one who does not speak English, and the only one who has experienced what Tibetans call "the atrocities of Chinese rule" at first hand.

But this might not be enough to secure the title, against more polished entrants who grew up abroad and who know better how to get a rowdy, mainly male audience on their sides.

Still, she says she is having the time of her life.

"When I was a child I learnt so much about happiness and sadness," she said. "It is very important to experience everything. Today I am very happy."

See also

Miss Tibet: The contest// Miss Tibet: 2002-2005// Miss Tibet: 2006-2009// Miss Tibet: 2010-2013// Tenzin Khecheo // Miss Tibet: 2014// Miss Tibet: 2015// Miss Tibet: 2016// Miss Tibet: 2017