The winner of the Miss Japan competition was a completely ethnic Ukrainian. And this caused a heated debate in the country. Some said that Caroline Shiina’s victory was a “sign of the times,” while others were adamant that Miss Japan should have a different look.
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The winner of the Miss Japan 2024 contest was Ukrainian Caroline Siina, who hails from Ternopil. Moreover, she became not only the first winner of the competition born outside of Japan, but also the oldest (26 years old), writes the BBC.
Accepting the crown and crying with joy, Caroline said in perfect Japanese that everything that happened was “like a dream.”
From the moment I heard my name, I haven’t stopped crying. “I had to overcome barriers when I was not perceived as Japanese, so I am grateful that I was recognized as the most beautiful Japanese woman at this competition,” she shared with the audience.
Carolina was born in Ternopil in 1998 into an ordinary Ukrainian family. But then her mother married a Japanese man, and they moved to Nagoya when the girl was only five years old. She quickly spoke the language of the new country, feeling Japanese “both in conversation and in her thoughts,” but as she grew up, she began to regretfully notice that everyone saw: she was not at all like the local girls.
Caroline applied for the Miss Japan pageant after becoming a citizen of the country in 2022. According to her, she did this in order to “create a society in which people will not be judged by their appearance.”
However, the fact that Caroline is the first non-Japanese to be crowned Miss Japan has fueled the debate about what it means to be Japanese.
While some said her win was a “sign of the times”, others were adamant that Miss Japan should be different.
When Ariana Miyamoto, whose mother was Japanese and whose father was African-American, became Japan’s representative at the Miss Universe pageant in 2015, it also caused mixed reactions among social media users. 20-year-old Ariana received thousands of congratulations, but also many critical comments from those who believed she was “not Japanese enough.”
But Caroline Shiina, despite her brilliant knowledge of language and culture, does not have a drop of Japanese blood flowing in her veins. In one of the posts on the X network, she is accused of exactly this:
The person chosen as Miss Japan has nothing to do with Japan at all. She is 100% Ukrainian. Don’t get me wrong, she is very beautiful, but the pageant is called Miss Japan. Where is the Japaneseness here?
If only she were half [японкою], this definitely wouldn’t be a problem. But she is ethnically 0% Japanese and was not even born in Japan, another comment points out.
At the same time, there were those who considered Carolina’s victory to be “discrimination against Japanese appearance”:
I think it’s wrong when a girl with European appearance is called the most beautiful Japanese woman, one of the comments says.
Another point of view is that the choice of the Ukrainian model was a political decision.
If she had been born Russian, she would never have won. She wouldn’t stand a chance. This is a very sad day for Japan,” one person wrote.
But Miss Japan Grand Prix chief organizer Ai Wada told the BBC that the judges gave Caroline the win because she deserved it.
She speaks and writes good and correct Japanese,” Wada said. — She is more Japanese than us.
Caroline herself, after receiving Japanese citizenship, wrote on Instagram that although she “doesn’t look Japanese,” her mentality “became Japanese” because she grew up in this country.
Shiina is the 56th winner of the Miss Japan pageant. This is the oldest beauty pageant in the country, which has been held since 1950. It was once founded by the Japanese newspaper Yemiuri Shimbun to select goodwill ambassadors to travel to the United States to express gratitude for the humanitarian aid the United States provided to children still malnourished after the end of World War II.
The winner’s crown was placed on the head of Fujiko Yamamoto. She later became one of Japan’s leading actresses and appeared in more than 100 films between 1952 and 1963, including Yashijuro Ozu’s The Colors of the Higan Festival, for which she won the Best Actress award. She was considered one of the most beautiful women in Japan, embodying the purely Japanese ideal.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.