Prewar beauty queen

Beauty contest bloopers on social media make for light entertainment to end a long working day.

These remind me of a time when monks were commenting seriously on the Miss Universe pageant Q&A. Everyone shared a better answer to each question until one of the monks shut everyone up. He stood up, stared everyone else down, and in a slow, serious tone declared: ”It’s a beauty contest, not an IQ test!”

While browsing prewar Philippine periodicals, I would come across news items on early beauty contests before the Miss Universe and Binibining Pilipinas franchise changed everything. First, were the Rizal Day Queens and Parades, then there were the Carnival Queens. No swimsuit category then. In the 1980s, I would see so many Carnival and Carnival Beauty Queen photos for sale in the Ermita antique shops for nothing. Today, these are scarce, precious, and provide content for specialized blogs like that of Alex D.R. Castro’s “Manila Carnivals, 1908-1939” with material that should rightfully be in a doctoral dissertation.

If we are to go by three prewar Carnival Queens from the University of the Philippines (UP), it is obvious their background, social class, and education set them apart, not just beauty. Pacita de los Reyes, Miss Philippines 1929, later became a lawyer. Maria Kalaw, Miss Philippines 1931, later served as senator and was one of the memorable chairs of the Board of Censorship for Motion Pictures.

I met Pacita de los Reyes Philipps once and she told me about her beauty queen days and of horseback riding with an American governor general. Maria Kalaw Katigbak I met through her sister Purita Kalaw Ledesma. I was going up to the Silahis Arts Center after Maria Kalaw and saw her walking barefoot. She turned to me and said she took her high-heeled shoes off for a while but would wear them when we reached the venue.

Clarita Tan Kiang was the third UP co-ed to be crowned Miss Philippines 1934. I never met her but knew of her from an interview by Engracia Laconico, Miss Philippines 1933. The conversation between them was fascinating because they came from a generation that was breaking out of the strictures of Rizal’s Maria Clara. They were from a generation that spoke English instead of Spanish, dressed differently, danced daringly, and aspired for a life outside of home and hearth. They went to university and looked forward to careers among and in competition with men. They kept “exquisite femininity in the age of modernism and grace.”

“I like music,” Tan Kiang told the interviewer to break the ice, “music, it seems to me, is the highest form of art man has ever conceived. I like to hear music. And I like to sing. In music, the heart, the soul, and the mind find the medium towards peace. Beauty as lived in the theme of a beautiful song is beauty that will never die.” I figured this woman would clinch the Q&A anytime; for the talent portion, she could sing. She was a student of voice culture at the UP Conservatory of Music.

For one inclined to music, algebra and math were her favorite school subjects: “Anything that concerns figures interests me.” This may come from her Chinese ancestry, her father Eduardo was a Chinese immigrant, married to a Bulaqueña, and was one of Manila’s top taxpayers. She was not homeschooled and neither did she grow up on a farm. She grew up in high society but didn’t take it as an entitlement. She educated herself formally in UP and informally through reading: “I like good novels, good stories, and good books on arts and music.” When asked why a society girl from a good family (“de buena familia”) was thinking of taking home economics, she answered: “Society? Yes, I love the company of my friends. But do you expect a girl to be in society all her life? Do you expect a girl to be of and for society forever? A girl to my mind must be at home both in society and in the kitchen.”

When asked about her future plans, she said: “After my studies here [UP], I hope to go abroad. Particularly, I want to go to Italy, the seat of music and art.” The Chinese mestiza beauty confessed, “I have gone only to China so far, but when I have completed my courses here, I intend to travel. I want to see the world and learn. They say travel is the best form of education, and I believe in it.”

When asked about her ideal man, she replied that he “must be a good Catholic, and second, he must have a pleasing personality. I want a man to look up to for support and protection, and one who can feel he is superior to me anytime, anywhere, in any manner. I do not want a she-man, at least that is my conception of my ideal man. I want him to assert himself. And in that case, he must be strong and reliable. I want a man who would love me, not because I am wealthy or because I am beautiful, but because of what I am. Such a love comes from the heart and is real, not artificial.”

Each generation has its own distinct beauty queens, beauty changing in the eye of the beholder.

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