Remembering "the nation" through pageantry: Femininity and the politics of Vietnamese womanhood in the Hoa Hau Ao Dia contest

Frontiers, 2000 by Lieu, Nhi T

Just as entertainers were chosen to draw in the audience, the host and hostess for the Long Beach pageant were also carefully chosen to be the voice of at least two important groups in the community-older men and young women. In this pageant, two distinguished and familiar members of the community served as the host and hostess of the pageant. A public personality, Nam Loc is a middleaged male songwriter who also works in refugee resettlement and immigrant assistance for the U.S. Catholic Conference. His female counterpart, Thuy Trinh, is a former ao dai queen turned television personality who comes into the homes of southern Californians daily on a Vietnamese entertainment program that introduces contemporary and classic Vietnamese music videos. With opposing points of view, the host and hostess presented the pageant rules, told jokes, stirred up emotions, invoked memories, exchanged commentary about gender, generation, and society, and introduced both beauty contestants and entertainment stars to the audience. The back and forth banter between the two provided comic relief to the audience. More importantly, Thuy Trinh identified with the women, the contestants, and younger members of the audience while Nam Loc, on the other hand, provided the link to the older generation and the cultural elites running the show. As representatives of two groups differentiated by gender and generation, the host and hostess used their identities as points of departure to debate and highlight tensions within the community without attempting to resolve them.

Thus the variety show not only supplemented the pageantry of the ao dai contest, but it also made the contradictions surrounding issues of gender and sexuality in the pageant more explicit. As a rule, the Vietnamese American beauty queen cannot be identified with entertainers because young women performers in the variety shows often openly display their sexuality by mimicking popular American media stars such as Madonna. The Vietnamese community believes that an ao dai queen must not be overly influenced by the American mass media as it can potentially contaminate her "ethnic" self. The queen is expected to exhibit a Western style of beauty but must remain "Vietnamese" enough to represent the traditions of the imagined nation. In contrast, the variety show typically allows professional performers, who have more flexibility to navigate between cultures, to act out the realities of the young contestants.

Sponsors and the Business of Making Ao Dai Beauty Queens

It comes as no surprise that the major sponsors of the Long Beach beauty pageant were ethnic businesses: food companies, photography studios, sewing companies, as well as wealthy professional men and women of the community. A Vietnamese ao dai tailoring company dressed the contestants and provided them discounts on their ao dai. The hair and makeup were done by Vietnamese-owned L.A. Cosmetics, another big sponsor. The largest contributor, however, was Tham My Mien Bich Ngoc (Bich Ngoc Cosmetic Surgery Center), which donated a total of $10,000 to the ao dai pageant, $5,000 of which was awarded to the queen. In return for their financial support, representatives of companies and businesses got the chance to crown the queens and runners-up as well as advertise on the final videotaped product. Though there was never any explicit connection made between cosmetic surgery and the contestants, the Bich Ngoc Cosmetic Surgery Center received a five-minute spot on the Long Beach pageant video, right at the beginning of the second videotape. The video ad profiled the "before" and "af ter" plastic surgery experience of an adolescent Vietnamese woman. A close-up image of her "before" face was scrutinized and criticized by plastic surgeon Dr. Vu Ban, who stated that Asian women are born with imperfect features: an angular face, a flat nose, no folds on the eyelids, an indistinct chin, and acne. The experienced doctor then introduced his "inexpensive" method of making a more "natural-looking, beautiful" face that he boasted Asian clientele prefer. The young woman's glowing "after" picture with alterations to the eyes, nose, and chin was shown, and she was interviewed. When asked why she decided to have plastic surgery, she explained that many of her friends had done it and they were pleased with their results. She stated that the doctor's inexpensive procedure had made her "beautiful" and increased her self esteem.