![\"Miss](\"http:\/\/indogomagazine.com\/indogo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Miss-Tibet-Tenzing-Lhamo.jpg\")
<\/a>Miss Tibet 2013, Tenzing Lhamo, is a Tibetan American living in Madison, Wisconsin. (Credit: Lobsang Wangyal)<\/p><\/div>\n
“I knew about the Miss India contest, and I always thought that was so cool, but we were like, ‘We\u2019re not Indians, we can\u2019t participate in all that,'” Lhamo said.<\/p>\n
She first heard about the Miss Tibet pagent in 2002 after she moved to Madison, Wisconsin. “The Tibetan community is so small, nothing really gets around without everybody knowing about it.”<\/p>\n
Beauty pageant contestants will give you lots of reasons why they\u2019re competing: for the money, for their modeling career, for world peace. Tenzing wanted to bring attention to the Tibetan people. And she thought the sash and crown could do it.<\/p>\n
“If I go around saying ‘Hey! My name is Tenzing, do you want to learn about Tibet?’ People wouldn\u2019t pay as much attention as if I say, ‘Hey, I\u2019m Miss Tibet and I want to talk about Tibet.'”<\/p>\n
Last winter, she mustered the courage to apply online. But when the organizer got in touch with her, she found out it wouldn\u2019t be your typical pageant, with disco balls and dance numbers.<\/p>\n
“He kind of hinted, ‘You might not have any competition,'” she said.<\/p>\n
The day before her flight to Bylakuppe, India, a Tibetan settlement in southern India, she learned that all the other contestants decided not to compete. There\u2019d been a scandal over the judging in 2011. And the following year, there was no competition at all. So Tenzing won before she even left Wisconsin.<\/p>\n
“I just always joke about: ‘I\u2019m the default Miss Tibet,’ and I have had people talk about it on the Internet. ‘Oh she won because she didn\u2019t have any competitors,'” she said. “Sometimes it makes me mad and then I\u2019m like, whatever. It\u2019s kind of funny.”<\/p>\n
Despite the lack of competition, Lobsang told her the show would go on.<\/p>\n
“He was trying to tell me that there would be a show and I would have to perform and everything,” she recalled. “I told him, ‘You know, I\u2019m not the performing type, I\u2019m not going to dance in front of people.’ I said: ‘I\u2019ll give a speech.'”<\/p>\n
So she spoke before a small gathering about oppression in Tibet and the rising number of self-immolations there.<\/p>\n
“That is one of the most important things in life \u2014 having the dignity of living as a human being with your voice being heard and that\u2019s not happening in Tibet. It\u2019s being suppressed,” Lhamo said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time a Miss Tibet has taken a stand.<\/p>\n
Back in 2006, when Miss Tibet competed in the Miss Tourism Pageant in Malaysia, representatives of the Chinese government demanded that her sash say \u201cMiss Tibet-China.\u201d She refused to compete. It happened again in 2011 at the Miss Asia Pacific World competition: China wanted Miss Tibet\u2019s sash to read \u201cMiss Tibet-China\u201d.<\/p>\n
She competed as \u201cMiss Tibet Swiss,\u201d instead.<\/p>\n
It may seem kind of trivial, but Tenzing sees power in what a pageant sash says. “Seeing Miss Tibet with the sash ‘Miss Tibet’ out with the rest of the world, it kind of makes you feel proud and gives people hope … people are actually receiving us and acknowledging us.”<\/p>\n
This weekend, Tenzing Lhamo will surrender her title to the next winner of the Miss Tibet pageant.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a safe bet that the winner will be Tenzin Yangzom, because for the second year in a row, the Miss Tibet beauty pageant has only one contestant.<\/p>\n
=============================<\/p>\n