Karolina Shiino, showing her Japanese passport after announcing her naturalization news in September 2022. / Karolina Shiino’s Instagram
A naturalized woman from Ukraine has won a beauty contest in Japan, sparking debate in the local community.
According to local media such as Kyodo News, on the 22nd, Karolina Shiino (26) from Ukraine won first place in the 56th Miss Japan Contest held in Tokyo. The Miss Japan Contest is a competition that evaluates “the unique beauty of Japan,” which started in 1950.
Shiino is a naturalized citizen who acquired Japanese citizenship in 2022 and works as a model. Although both her parents were Ukrainian, she reportedly grew up in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, since her mother divorced and remarried a Japanese man.
On the official Miss Japan website, Shiino introduced herself, saying, “I am a naturalized Japanese with Ukrainian roots. Even though I may look like a foreigner on the outside, I grew up in Japan since I was five years old, so I am essentially Japanese.”
In her winning speech, she said, “I miss my mother the most, who brought me to Japan and allowed me to live as a Japanese. I applied for this contest because I wanted to be recognized as a Japanese, and I can’t stop crying.”
However, there have been mixed reactions among the Japanese to this selection.
On Yahoo, Japan’s largest portal site, many responded positively, saying, “As long as she,e has Japanese nationality, race doesn’t matter,” and “There’s no reason why beauty pageants should be any different from sports, which accept foreigners.”
On the other hand, some expressed adverse reactions, saying, “I feel like the contest always prioritizes sensationalism and selects based on political intentions,” and “I wish the Japanese representative to show the strengths of Asians.”
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