 Hello! Welcome back to Quok Talk! I took a little break, had to do stuff out, you know, as one does. So anyway, welcome back. If you've never seen my show before, I'm Crystal. And this is a platform for us to talk about sensitive, provocative, socially important issues that pertain to women and our bodies. So please join us today. We have a very fun and glamorous topic that of beauty pageant. They're all giggling here. They're like, well, it's not that glamorous. Is it? So, today we're going to be talking about beauty pageants and the myths. So, Mythbusters, welcome, ladies! Can you see these? If I had, like, this clap kind of thingies. Good morning. In my head, I have this song because it's a beauty pageant song in Hong Kong. And everyone knows it. And then everyone kind of does that beauty pageant wave. Do you guys have a beauty pageant wave? Is there such a thing? Just to learn how to do it. Everyone thinks that it's something along the lines. It's something along the lines. It's very graceful. But truth be told, when I see a little kid on the side of the street, when they're watching the parade and I'm in a car, I freak out. And I kind of just like... And you call like, are you local? And you're like, ah! And that's why you're like trying to be local. People look at me funny because I'm so pale, but I mean, you're... You look a lot more local than I do. Are you three all local? Let's get it off. Well, I was born in New York, but I grew up here. I went to Punahou School and then I went to UH Manoa. Okay, so let's back up a little bit. You guys all introduce yourselves. Tell your names. And I'll try to remember your titles because, you know... Okay, so Stephanie, let's start with Stephanie. Okay, so my name is Stephanie Wang and I was a 2015 Miss Chinatown, Hawaii. I was born in New York and I moved here when I was six years old. So I grew up in Hawaii, attended Punahou School, and then later University of Hawaii at Manoa, where I studied Chinese language and literature. Wow, what are you going to do with that? Oh, don't you hear his press chime? Forget it, I'll pull back. I promised myself we're not going to do those stupid questions like, oh, where are you going to be in five years? Forget I asked you anything. Okay. Unless you want to tell us. Well, right now I really want to go into writing, so hopefully I can do Chinese writing and English writing. Great, great place for all that multicultural. Good stuff. Okay, Lindsay? Hi, my name is Lindsay. I was your 2015 Miss Hawaii Chinese. I am 22 years old. I went to Wangala High School. I'm from Honolulu, Hawaii, born and raised. And yeah, I'm currently majoring in healthcare administration. I hope to graduate this fall. What do you say hope to? Oh, because it's a lot of questions. Yeah. That's fantastic. Great. And anything else you want to share that we need to know about you? Um, I'm left handed. That's a weird fact. Okay. All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Tara Driver. I am your Miss Chinatown Hawaii 2016. I just competed at the Miss Hawaii pageant to represent the Chinese community of Hawaii as well as the Chinatown community. I just graduated from Ilanee School and I'll be attending New York University in the fall to study engineering with the focus in construction management and urban planning. I have been born and raised here, Kaimuki local girls. Yeah. I won't use my home, but I'm excited to branch out and learn more about other places and other cultures that I can bring it back here for everyone to appreciate. Excellent, excellent. So I'm so glad you are all so different. You all have your own personalities and everything comes across that way. But a lot of times pageants tend to pigeonhole girls who join these things and you become just this walking, beautiful body that represents something that becomes a cliche and some people like to criticize, especially feminists who think, what beauty pageant on you exploiting your body, do you think? So let's just start with how you feel about beauty pageants and whether your experience in it had changed your perception of it or some myths that you really want to put on the table today and say, it's not like that. Oh, definitely. There's definitely a stereotype when it comes to pageants. You think beauty pageants are leggy girls with maybe blonde hair who only care about their looks, but from my experience I know that it's completely not like that. I realized that everyone is beautiful in their own way. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and colors and it's just, from my experience, I don't feel like I've been self-conscious about the way I look. You don't feel judged? In a way, I mean it is competition, but I think you're competing more so with yourself. Oh, that's interesting. Do you feel that way before? Competing yourself? During competition I would definitely say that it's more competing with yourself than anything, but there is an expectation to always look a certain way and wear certain things, hold yourself and speak with the right words at the right time. And so I think that... So you can't talk like Trump who says, oh, I don't care about that. I don't think anyone can. I wouldn't even pull it off very well, so... Okay. But yeah, there is, I feel like there are always people watching you and telling you that you should be doing certain things a certain way, but at the end of the day you have to evaluate yourself and see, you know what, am I happy with the image that I'm portraying because if that's the authentic me of which I'm proud and I want other people to be proud of as well, then that's all you can do. Okay. Let's see. Do you have anything else? Yeah, I can definitely agree to both. And yeah, I mean for me, Beauty pageants was something I looked at as, oh, you have to be very proper and very confident. And when I went into this pageant, I had no pageant experience at all. I was very shy. I was a tomboy. And I still am a tomboy. So why did you want to do it then? I wanted to do the Miss Chinatown Hoy pageant specifically because it's always been a dream, a childhood dream of mine to do that. And yeah, I mean growing up, my dad would take me to Chinatown and we'd see the queens and I'd be like, wow, I want to be that one day. So yeah, I mean the opportunity came up as I got older and I just kind of took the opportunity and it really helped me to grow and overcome a lot of obstacles in my life as well. Right, okay. So you brought out the fact that you had this aspiration when you were a young little girl and that just kind of reminds me of a lot of young girls here. When they look at social media, when they look at all these fashion magazines, they go, oh, I want to be a model, I want to do this and do that. Do you think there's any danger in that type of over obsession with how they look, especially young girls, they get too involved or self-critical and what are the dangers of a beauty pageant type of focus that may turn their values, maybe not as balanced as it should be? I think just trying to fit into a mold instead of embracing who you are and just becoming everything that you're not in the process, just losing yourself in general. I think that's very easy. Have you seen people do that or have you confessed to doing that yourselves? Is that part of the process? To lose yourself? Yeah, I've had that experience before. It's very easy to, especially if you look up to people and you're new to an experience, it's really easy to tend to listen to everything other people say, so getting external affirmations about what you should look like, how you should act, and even just wardrobe choices and everything. Everyone has their own opinion and there's no right or wrong choice, but I think the most important thing to remember if you find yourself forgetting who you are is to just re-center yourself into... How do you do that? How do you guys find the comfort and the confidence for your own body? Food. Mud. Climb a tree. Those are all things that I grew up with and those are my foundations and I find that the easiest way to do that and to go back to wherever it is if you find yourself with a little bit larger of a head than you should, is to just go anywhere. It's yourself in nature, a place where no one knows you with or without your full face of makeup on. Back to nature. Yes, exactly. Go back to your truest, most natural state and that's when you kind of remind yourself that you're just a human and you're very small. You're in the perfect place for that, right? Hawaii is just... Absolutely. Nature and beauty is all in one and you guys are reflecting that. So going back again to the actual pageant process. So are there some things that we should know about that kind of happen behind the scenes that are of interest to the general public that are like, what, they really do that? Butt glue. Oh! I said that! Sorry, I didn't... That's the first thing, right? You guys are so silly. No, there's nothing proper about it. That is actually what we look like in real life, you know? We just make funny faces all the time and laugh and joke. It's not all just about smiles and proper and... Okay, so please definitely define what butt glue is. Okay, so during the swimsuit phase in order for the bottom piece to not look saggy or ride up or become unshapen, you want it to be nice and flat so you can apply a spray-on glue. Or a roll-on. Or a roll-on. Regular glue? There's Elmer's glue. Arching craft glue. Check it out, put your little clip on. It's art. And then you just stick it on and then you literally stick your swimsuit the way you want it to. So when you're walking, it just stays there. While you're walking. Yes, it's a staple. Anyone who goes to the beach knows that bathing suits don't look like the way they do on stage. There are extra precautions that need to be taken into consideration. When you go to the bathroom, you put it back on, you have to re-stick it. Then the skin just leaves your body. So there you have all skin on your body. And glue. It stays on for days no matter how long you scrub it. So what I do is I recycle the glue to hold on my talent costume afterwards to make sure that that doesn't go anywhere either. That's environmental. Exactly. A good tip if you have evening gown after or some kind of Cheongsam face, just throw baby powder on. Stick to your dress. You can see your Chinese dress after that. Then you're fine. You'd have white all over your spray ton. What about your boobs? You have to do something to stick your swimsuit on top of it? Duck tape. That double-taped one? I don't like duck tape. Seriously, that's going to break. I don't know this trick. What is duck tape? It's like electricians use. I don't know what duck tape is. I'm a contractor's daughter. I don't know the trick. Please, enlighten us. During pageant, there's a lot of people backstage on the side and you just run out in your bathing suit and you hold your boobs up and they just take you. They squeeze whatever cleavage you can get and put it together. How do you not show it? Well, bathing suit or Cheongsam. The dress is very like... It's all covered. Tara, obviously you don't need to use it. She doesn't need it. Exactly. Now that we're on the topic of boobs, what about the pressures of that? A lot of Asian girls are pretty flat-chested and there are always dirty old men who are out there to check out your bodies because you are presenting yourself on stage, especially with the bathing suit aspect of the contest. How do you feel about that? Has that changed your perception of what's perfect size or what you need to do to show or not show it? I think now it's swimsuit phase is not really about becoming the perfect size. I think it's really just embracing your body and everything that you are. So if you have bigger hips, girls are showing that off. Instead of hiding it or trying to slim down in the waist or the hips or the thighs. That must be an American thing though, right? Because the pageants in Hong Kong or China, everyone wants to be stick thin and they don't want to be proud of the extra gifts. I think it just depends from culture to culture because everyone has such different standards and definitions of beauty. The ones in Hong Kong are very different from the ones that we have in Hawaii and even our standards here are so different from those of Texas, New York, California. So I think that for Hawaii specifically, people are very comfortable being natural. Our definition of beauty is showing up in a bathing suit like beach clothes with maybe mascara on. If that, but if you show yourself like that, then it's perfectly acceptable. Whereas I have friends in Texas who say that they never go out with their hair done without their hair done. Yes. And so I think that for Hawaii in particular, we have so many different influences from all over the world. So we're a lot more comfortable helping women to express whoever their identities are as opposed to conforming to the stick-thin standard or the curvy or the six-pack of abs, you know? Right. There are so many different... I'm so glad. I'm so happy. You guys are so healthy in the best way. We're going to take a quick break and come back and continue talking. We're going to get... We learned about butt cream and duct tape, so when we come back, we'll find out a little bit more. Okay, don't go away. Aloha. I'm Shantel Seville, the host of The Savvy Chick Show which you can watch every Wednesday at 11 a.m. on ThinkTechHawaii.com. On The Savvy Chick Show, we are all about inspiring and empowering women and girls to be the best they can be by having amazing guests from all around the world. So we hope you'll join us every Wednesday at 11 a.m. Aloha. Hey, everybody. My name is David Chang, and I am a new host for the show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you how to get the smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests in the military, business, political, nonprofit world. So no matter what background you're from, we have something for you. Please join us every other Thursday at 10 a.m. at ThinkTechHawaii.com or on TheArtOfThinkingSmart.com. I look forward to seeing you. For a very healthy summer, watch Viva Hawaii. We're giving you the best tips and with our best health coach here. So Viva health coach. Viva la comida saludable. This is Steve Katz. I'm a marriage and family therapist, and I do shrink wrap, which is now going to every other week all during the summer and maybe forever after. Take care of your mental health this summer. Have a good time. Do what's fun and take good care of yourself. Bye-bye. Welcome back to Quok Talk. Again, we have here Beauty Queens. And I hate that because it just puts a title on you and you don't see them. When you listen to these girls talk, you know these are not just Beauty Queens. I mean, she's Stephanie, Lindsey and Tara back here. So we were talking about some fun things behind the scenes. You know, when I was driving my daughter to her class this morning, she's 13 and she asked, so what do they do if they, you know, get a pimple on the day of it or how long does it take for you to get, you know, your hair made up? What are, you know, I'm sure there's some issues like stress related or what if you get your period during that day? Are there like stories like that that we should, like, nobody talks about? Let me hear pimples. You kind of just have to anticipate it because it's such a high stress period of time. And I mean, as idealistic as it would be, yeah, we all have pimples when we go on stage. Okay, so it's part of it. Okay. And then during pageant week two, you spend so much time with other women that it's almost inevitable that someone's going to have their period, which means that everyone's going to have their period. That's contagious. Don't breathe on me right now. Stay away. Are there, were there some experiences that were kind of not so favorable that you care to share? Are there some horrible things with the different girls, you know, the bitchiness and all that stuff? I haven't had that experience so far. I've been fortunate. You guys, Hawaii's so nice. Nobody does anything bitchy, right? You know what though? I have a friend. I just, well, I competed in this Hawaii this past year and one of the contestants is from California and she just moved to Hawaii to study, but she had competed in the Miss California pageant and she said that there were girls there who slashed dresses. They would ruin them with oil or whatever there was backstage and that's just normal culture. Oh, normal culture is it? Right, absolutely. Okay. It's so strange and so she was so happy to be in a state like Hawaii where everyone is so supportive of each other because I've never been in a pageant where there was tension or drama between the girls, but I didn't realize that that was something exclusive to, that was like a part of, a pro-exclusive to Hawaii. Right, right. Well, you are blessed with the niceness of the island. Lindsay, you were voted Miss Congeniality in the Miss UA essay, Chinatown Pageant, correct? Yeah. Now, what does that mean? You know, after the movie, you should think more socially. You know, Sandra Bullock. But why do you think they have this particular award? Do you think it's because there's an assumption that most girls are bitchy and snobby and that they need to, you know, highlight the fact that there is actually somebody nice? What is that all about? No, I think it's just an award that, you know, just highlights the girl that loves everyone and cares about everybody and, you know, isn't afraid to be her true self around the other girls. And, yeah, it was a privilege being voted amongst the other girls, especially meeting them only two weeks prior. And, yeah, it was a lot of fun. And, yeah, thank you. Okay, great. You know, I confess that I was part of Miss Chinatown years and years ago before you guys were born. But I remember one thing that I'll take away from it is before the pageant, everyone was so fun and friendly and everyone was so good to each other. And then the day after, after the titles were given and the fact that I won, people immediately turned, like the girls who were my best buddy like that night before, all of a sudden just gave me the cold shoulder. And it was just like a real hit of reality, like what people do when, depending on where you are. How do you feel about that? Do you see people treating you different or... Well, the beginning of a pageant experience is a lot different from, you know, the last week of the pageant when it suddenly hits you that it's coming up. And I do see a change, like there's a shift in seriousness. I guess some girls like to, I mean everyone has to focus their energy in different ways, right? So for me, I like to, sometimes I like to be alone and sometimes I like to just like, replenish my good energy because from all the stress, it's so stressful. And some girls do the same thing. So you see some girls kind of excluding themselves at the end, you know? Just to focus their energy because it is a competition. And I mean, although I love all the girls it's a sisterhood. That's right, I saw from the pictures. It really feels like you guys have a nice bonding with your experience. Right, right. So it's a sisterhood and even though things change at the end, everyone knows that, and we're all in this together, it's an experience, it's not just a bunch of girls get thrown into a room and it's like, okay, compete. It's a whole, it's like months leading up and you get to know each other very well. You create friendships. I mean, we've been friends for like more than two years now. Would you say it's a good platform? Kind of like a metaphor of life. You know, your social skills and competition and challenges you have to face. Would you say that's a big experience? That's what you take away from it? I think it makes you grow up really quickly. I mean, I was one of the youngest contestants this past year at 17 years old when I stepped on the stage. And so at that point, you have to be able to advocate for your personal platform. You have to be able to hold yourself full in front of an audience. You have to be able to conduct a 10 and a half minute interview with the judges. Was it that long? Yeah. And I loved every second of it because of all of the preparation that you put into it. You know, you get at what you put in, but it definitely does make you learn a specific skill set that is applicable to a lot more than pageantry. Like, all of my college interviews were so much fun because like a one-on-one interview was nothing in comparison to having seven people firing questions that you rapid fire, you know? What were some questions you guys didn't like or just dreaded? Look at that picture of you, so cute with that. What was that? That was for the celebrities on their pets fashion show as a part of the annual Pet Expo. So that little dog was up for adoption that afternoon. So if you want to go check that out this year, then you can find yourself a nice little or big dog whatever your preference is. Okay. Great. Wait, who was, sorry, I didn't want to mean to cut somebody else. Did somebody say something? Just a little that we don't like to have. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Oh, a question that we don't like to have. What were you saying while screening? Well, your year, I heard that there was the Zodiac question, right? Oh, my goodness. That was like a, they just threw that out there just to like throw us off a little bit. Like what? Um, it was, well, we were in a Chinese culture pageant. Okay. So they were like, can you name the 12 Zodiacs? What? It feels like a task for me. In order. In order. In order. Yeah. Right. Um. I was like, I'm a monkey and my brother is, you're younger than me. He's a rooster. So I was kind of trying to go in order. Based on people I knew. Right. Right. But I mean, I heard you guys explain that the judges didn't really care if you knew all of the Zodiac animals. But what were they looking for? They wanted to see how we would react because it was such an off question. Okay. So how would you like hold yourself in that, in that question under pressure? Right. You guys should be allowed, you know what I think you should, next time they have pageant, contestants should be allowed to ask the judges a question. You can. You really? Absolutely can. Has anybody done that? I mean, it's just like this. It's a conversation with the group of people in front of you because they're trying to get to know you. Right. And you have done like preliminary research. You've definitely Googled them at least three times. Oh, really? So you need to know where they're coming from. Right. Right. So I mean, by that point, there's entry level knowledge on both ends. Good. Okay. And so I mean, you can, you might not get a lengthy response, but it is a conversation first and foremost. Going back to the pre, when we just started the show about the whole preconceptions of beauty pageants, when guys approach you, because you have this title, do they have certain expectations or misconceptions of what, you know, you're supposed to be like? Well, we can take a lot of photos with people. Right. There must be a lot of dirty old men who are going to love to know. Okay. There's a chance for that. There's a chance for that. Oh, okay. Let's take a choice. So if somebody's like, hey, oh, they'll like, and then, but then they look, they, sometimes they go lower and they just go, and it's on your, so you move it up. Yeah. You just, okay. You don't, yeah. And they get the hint. But it's, it's really difficult because a lot of times those are people who have a lot of influence or power. And so you might not necessarily be in a position where you feel comfortable like publicly saying, please move your hand. And it's, it's really, it makes me really sad to think about the fact that I can't publicly express that like, concern over my own body. And so it's something that I get upset about. And so if I see a girl who's being, just for lack of a better word, attacked by one of these people, then I'll like, come in and I'll move the hand. Oh, good. So that's, oh, here. Let's take all the picture together. We'll just help each other out. That's great. Yeah. But what about boyfriend situations? Have you, has that affected or just, you know, social life? You get the dirty old men who do that and they will always be dirty. Hate to say. I mean, you know, like that's a dirty old man. I sometimes see him like talk, breaking out dirty jokes. Guys are always guys. And because, again, you are on stage with a beauty image. How do you educate the men to respect women? I know that sounds like one of those pageant questions cringy, but can you just, you know, what are your suggestions on how to remove that type of perspective? I was a minor in, like, publicly broadcast on state television in a swimsuit. Like that photo, right? Exactly, exactly like that. I was 17 when I, when I did that. And so, it was really nerve-wracking for me because I knew that I was going to have a lot of people watching the pageant as there are every year. And I think that I just make it very public that my body is mine. And I know that people are going to be looking at it however way they want to, but that, like, photo, walking across the stage in a swimsuit is my personal active empowerment and taking ownership of that kind of removes whatever negativity other people might give to me, whether that's scrutiny for being 17 years old and walking across the stage in a swimsuit, which I am still trying to get over. Or it be people who are looking at me for dirty reasons. Right, and you're going to get that throughout life, right? You know, being an attractive girl and confident, a world is like that. Women are the spectacle and the men are the spectators. Now, we have just a little bit of time left. If you can share anything you want to say to maybe men out there about the perception of beauty pageant or the concept of beauty, please, this is your moment. I mean, I ultimately understand that we are people, you know, we are still learning about ourselves and we are not just, you know, items for you to just look at and grab and you know, we are women and we're here trying to learn, trying to help the community, do our community service, stand up for young children, you know, to advocate for respect and if we can't even get respect ourselves, like how do we, how do you guys expect us to help the youth, you know? Right, right. Yeah, just going off of staff, I agree, you know, yeah, you know, help us out. A difference in the world and in our community. So, yeah, you know, I think just helping us, helping us to empower ourselves as well as empower others around us as well. I know that not all of you are bad guys and as much as we, I know, I'm sorry. You know, peer pressure is such a big part of why men act the way that they do because there is an expectation for them, just like there is for us to say the certain things and to act a certain way when they're with their friends. And I think that if people felt comfortable standing up for themselves, whether it's a man or a woman in a setting with which they're not comfortable, then that would create a mutual sense of respect for all parties involved and whatever it be. So, I mean, if you hear a buddy talking about a woman who is wearing a short skirt, then you know what, feel it, that's her body. She can do what she wants with it. Exactly. Someone once told me that. You own it. Yeah, absolutely. People can't be equal in the workplace until they can be equal in the home. Oh, good. So I think that that's a really good first step as to how we can all work together to create that mutual sense of respect. Hear that, guys? I mean, ladies and gentlemen, that is, I think you guys have the essence of what it is to be beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Inside and out, nature, Hawaii, bringing the best of everyone out. So thank you so much for your reflective and gorgeously confident conversations today. Remember to check us out if you missed this one. Go on to YouTube. This is Quok Talk on Think Tech. Thank you again, ladies. Thank you for having us. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us.