Miss Asia Pacific World: a shameful contest

The Korean "winner" resigned

Earlier this year, a man by the name of Lawrence Choi launched a contest which was supposed to be the revival of the traditional Miss Asia Pacific. He promised national directors from around the world air tickets for the candidates, great cash prizes, and worldwide broadcast of a “magnificent event” to be held in South Korea.

The pageant, which was supposed to happen in the first semester, took place only in October after moving the date three times. First Warning.

Just when the chosen contestants were preparing to fly to the pageant in May, another email was sent to national directors saying: “The competition will be held in October, and the directors will have to pay for the delegates’ airfare (going against what had been originally offered)”.  Most directors immediately withdrew.  After all these delegates were removed from the pageant’s website, on their Facebook page, organizers said “it had been the work of a ‘hacker’”. They never explained that such candidates had withdrawn from the competition due to their lack of  organization and word.

But all of that was nothing compared to what the 40+ candidates had to face once they arrived  in Korea.

For instance, Miss Venezuela placed second in the “talent competition”, without having performed! The girls had to sleep on the floor, as there were not enough beds in their hotel rooms; they barely had enough food to eat. And it does not end there: Amy Willerton, the British candidate, fled the competition along with other girls after being offered votes in exchange for sex (READ HERE).

Miss Guyana published a series of videos on Youtube showing some of the most absurd situations which took place in this event.

In the end, an all-Korean panel of judges chose Miss Korea as the winner, something that, at that point, really did not matter (candidates who saw the voting sheets claimed the Korean contestant placed 3rd in reality). Some girls took days to be allowed to return home, because the “host hotel” held them back for not paying their hotel bills, which was of the pageant organizers’ responsibilities.
It is important to note that Mr Choi used the “Miss Asia Pacific” name without legal permit, once this scam clearly has nothing to do with the real Miss Asia Pacific pageant, ran by Filipinos. Things became even worse when the organization added “World” to the pageant’s name, after all, Miss World Asia Pacific is the title the best ranked candidate in the region gets in the Miss World competition.

Earlier this year, Global Beauties was invited to cover and give promotion to this pageant, but refused to do so. It was finally covered by a fan page which shamefully appears as one of the pageant’s “sponsors”.

Lawrence Choi blamed the local committees in each of the three Korean cities for the pageant’s fiasco. However, the man had plenty of time to organize the pageant, which had been originally scheduled for June 4, and it was HIS PAGEANT, which means, it was his responsibility. The winner, Park Sae-Byul, resigned after she found out that organizers would not give her any of the promised prizes -- US$ 30 thousand in cash + US$ 170 thousand in “goods” (whatever that means). None of the winners would receive their prizes after Choi declared the pageant “a failure”.

At the moment, several organizations are taking legal matters against this pageant, among them the owners of the original “Miss Asia Pacific” trademark.  Also, a considerable amount of directors who sent delegates to this event have also been sounding off in social media, explaining the situation.

We hope this horrible pageant episode ends in the courts and that Mister Choi and all the parties involved pay for their crimes.

It will serve as an alert to pageant directors: they should be careful with “new pageants” they send their candidates to. Clearly the 47 women who participated in Korea ran serious risk away from home.