Miss University Contests in Japan - My experience as a finalist in Miss YNU Contest

What is Miss University Contests in Japan (Miss YNU Contest)? 

In almost all universities in Japan, they hold Miss (University name) Contest every year. It is a very important event in Japanese university and Japanese culture. These contests are aimed to select the most representative female student of the university. This contest is not only about competition of body image, but it’s also about intelligence, personality, inner beauty and other qualities of a strong young woman. The length of event varies from four to six months. The selecting process of the winner is usually via online voting and voting on the final stage. 

My Experience as a finalist (Miss YNU 2019) - Emily CHUNG (ショウ　エミリ)

Hello. My name is Emily. I’m from Taiwan. I am currently studying at Yokohama National University (YNU). This year I decided to challenge myself some new, so I applied for Miss YNU 2019. 

On end of June, YNU announced the five finalists of this year. Luckily, I am selected as one of the finalist - Entry No.4 ショウエミリ.

As the first international student to be chosen as a finalist in Miss YNU Contest, I’m trying my best to be the best representative of international students. I am so proud to be the first foreign student to be on the final round.

Why I decided to run for Miss YNU Contest?

I was born in an expat family, I have lived in France, the Netherlands, Japan (Okinawa and Yokohama), and Taiwan. The experience of living abroad for more than ten years developed me to be open-minded and developed my interests in learning about foreign cultures. I’m currently studying in a program called -YCCS, which is a global leader development program designed for International students in YNU. YNU has the largest percentage of international students in all national university in Kando area (10% of the students in YNU are international students). However, I often feel international students are not presented in YNU enough, and the relationship between Japanese students and international students is not strong enough. Therefore, I would like to use this chance to build a stronger relationship between international and Japanese students.  

Furthermore, there is also a personal reason that I decided to join this contest. As a third cultural kids (TCK), I need to adapt to new culture, environment and language, which is not easy. During my childhood, I have doubted about my identity so many time and I was lacking confident about myself. Over many years of studying abroad, I learned the value of diversity and start gaining confidence about my multicultural background. Therefore, this is also a challenge for me to increase my self esteem. 

I have absolute disadvantages in this contest due to language barriers, limited connection of people in Japan and lack of experience of Japanese culture. However, I would like to show the audiences of the contest that I can do as any young women can, regardless of my nationality, ethnicity and cultural background. In the next 4 months, I’ll be attending events to let more people to know about me!!

How to vote?

The selecting process of the winner of Miss YNU is via Online voting + voting on the final stage (November 2nd).⚠️Online voting information: From July 15th to November 2nd⚠️ <- you can vote no matter where you are as long as you get internet connected.

I need great support from the international groups.

Instagram Account