Beauty with a Purpose - IEA Web

Kayi Cheung

Kayi Cheung (born on 18 November 1983 in Hong Kong with family roots in Chaozhou, Guangdong, is Miss Hong Kong 2007. She also received the Miss Vitality Ambassador award. Kayi has said her goal is to become a successful programme host and to promote healthy living.

In 2005, Kayi entered the Miss Chinese (Vancouver) Pageant in which she was not named as a Top 3 contestant. However, she did capture the Miss Vivacious Beauty award. She hosted What's On on Fairchild Television until April 2007 when she returned to Hong Kong as an overseas contestant in the Miss Hong Kong Pageant. Kayi wasn't a favorite to win, and was virtually ignored during the entire pageant. She was not considered even a contender to make the top 8, let alone top 5 or top 3. When she was announced as the winner, the live audience booed heavily because nobody expected her to be up there. Most of those in attendance thought that the crown should have gone to eventual runner-up Grace Wong, who had bagged the Miss Photogenic and Miss International Goodwill awards on the same night.

What followed was massive criticism totally unseen in Hong Kong pageant history. The media and the public severely bashed Kayi for being one of the facially weakest Miss Hong Kong winners ever. Some even compared her with American Idol participant William Hung, and gave her mean nicknames like "pork chop" and "pizza faced". TVB, the organizer of the pageant, claimed that the onstage performance on the final night was just part of the game and Kayi had showed very strong communication skills when meeting the judges before the final, which might prove decisive. The public were not convinced, and insisted that Kayi's win was fixed. The bashing continued to the point that there were informal polls among internet fans on whether there should be a re-election of Miss Hong Kong 2007. Nevertheless, Kayi handled the pressure gracefully and remained calm and composed whenever she was asked about all the harsh comments made on her looks.

Kayi attended the University of British Columbia, a university that has produced beauty queens in the past. Besides Kayi, four other Vancouver contestants have won the Miss Hong Kong pageant --- Virginia Yung (1997), Anne Heung (1998), Sonija Kwok (1999) and Vivian Lau (2000). The university has also produced three Miss Chinese International winners including Bernice Liu of 2001, Linda Chung of 2004, and Leanne Li of 2005.

Kayi competed in Sanya, China for the Miss World 2007 pageant in December 2007. In the pageant she made history by becoming the first Miss Hong Kong to win the Beauty With A Purpose award, based on her charity work for the "Wai Yin Association", a charitable organisation set up by a group of former Miss Hong Kong winners/participants since 1982. Kayi tied with Miss Ecuador for the award so both advanced to the semifinals automatically. She is the first Miss Hong Kong to make the semi-finals since Pauline Yeung did in 1987. The Miss World 2007 title went to Zhang Zilin of the People's Republic of China.

In January 2008, Kayi went on to compete in the Miss Chinese International 2008 pageant where she was not considered to have much chance to do well even as the host delegate. Again she broke all odds and became 1st runner up, the first Miss Hong Kong to place in the top 3 since Mandy Cho in 2004. This was again criticised as being the result of TVB's "help", especially because other contestants were mostly of very competitive quality, and Kayi's performance was considered mediocre at best.

Ironically, Kayi did the worst in the relatively least competitive pageant she had entered, Miss Chinese Vancouver 2005.

Eun Young Oh

Eun Young Oh (born c. 1985) is a beauty queen from the nation of Korea. She won the Miss Korea World title and finished in the top 6 of the Miss World 2005 pageant. She was fast tracked to the semifinals by winning the Miss World Beauty With A Purpose title. She also won the Miss World Asia Pacific title, which used to be called "Queen Of Asia and Oceania."

Oh was a big surprise to many people in winning The Beauty With A Purpose title. Many people were also surprised that she beat out big favorite, Carlene Aguilar in winning the title. She was declared the number one favorite by www.globalbeauties.com. Afterwards, she returned to Korea to continue her studies.

Miss World

The Miss World pageant is an international beauty pageant created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951. Currently, Morley's wife, Julia Morley, co-chairs the pageant.

Miss World is oldest surviving major international pageant. The telecast of the final competition is the world's largest live annual beauty pageant television event with global viewers in more than 200 countries.

The winner spends a year travelling to represent the Miss World Organization and its various causes. Traditionally, Miss World lives in London during her reign. The current Miss World is Zhang Zilin of China.

History

Miss World started as the Festival Bikini Contest, in honor of the recently introduced swim wear of the time, but was called "Miss World" by the press. It was originally planned as a one-off event. Upon learning about the upcoming Miss Universe pageant, Morley decided to make the pageant an annual event.

Opposition to the wearing of bikinis led to their replacement with more modest swim wear after the first contest. In 1959, the BBC started broadcasting the competition. The pageant's popularity grew with the advent of television. By the 1990s, the pageant was reaching two billion viewers from almost every country in the world.

In the 1980s, the pageant repositioned itself with the slogan Beauty With a Purpose, with added tests of intelligence and personality. However, the competition has been seen as old-fashioned and rather politically incorrect in its native Britain. Despite the global appeal, the show was not broadcast on any major terrestrial British TV network for several years, until Channel 5 aired it in 1998.