Back in February Shanghai’s Xinmin Evening News ran a short item in regard to the selection criteria being used to find forty college-aged Shanghai “beauties” to serve as Olympic medal hostesses in Beijing that was quickly picked up – in English – by China Daily:
According to the requirement, candidates should be between 18 and 24 and 1.68 and 1.78 meters in height. They should have a “ruddy and shiny complexion”, “elastic skin” and “a plump but not fat body” … It also set strict standards on facial features, including the ratio between the “width of the nose and the length of the face”, “width of the mouth and width between the pupils” …
Readers flooded the Xinmin Evening News with letters deriding the sexist public officials who had drawn them up. In return, the sexist public officials – stationed in Putuo District – held a press conference at which they denied that they would do anything so offensive as select hostesses with such inane, offensive criteria. In response, the editor of the Xinmin Evening News printed an unprecedented front-page defense of the story which that included memos from relevant government officials describing – in detail – the American Kennel Society-like criteria being used to choose Shanghai’s delegation. Putuo District never got around to responding, and that was that.
Until yesterday, and a very much-appreciated Xinhua story posted to the official Beijing 2008 site. The author, referencing Wang Ning, deputy division chief of the Sport Representation and Victory Ceremony Division of the Culture and Ceremonies Department, BOCOG, writes:
A hostess needs to be a college student with good education background. She needs to be between 168 to 175 cm and good looking, which was specified in statistics of the sizes of bust, waist, hip and even mouth, nose, and eye, Wang said, but she refused to reveal the numbers.
“It was only a reference for the experts and some girls failing to accord with the size were also selected because of their beauty and passion,” Wang said.
First, score one for the Xinmin Evening News..
Second, I don’t want to spoil Wang’s fun, much less reveal a state secret, but here’s the number that she won’t reveal: 1.618. Students of Renaissance mathetmatics, and fans of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci code will both recognize it as the famed, infamous Golden Ratio that some people (Chinese bureaucrats, included) seem to think defines the ideal of human beauty. For example, in the DaVinci Code, Dan Brown claims that 1.618 is the ratio between the height and width of the ideal man in DaVinci’s Vetruvian Man.
Back on February 25, when I last posted on this bizarre topic, I wrote:
In fact, since the 1860s, a rich literature of speculation and studies (some poor, some rigorously scientific) have attempted to prove that the Golden Ratio defines the ideal of human beauty (a good summation of this literature was recently written by Dr. Mario Livio, and can be found here and here). As a statistical matter, nobody has ever been able to prove that humans are more highly attracted to faces that closely approximate the Golden Ratio. Partly, this might have to do with the fact that not everybody likes the look of the Golden Ratio’s ideal rectangle; and, for that matter, the ratios that average across Caucasian faces are not going to be the ones that average across, say, Chinese ones.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that Shanghai’s bureaucrats might have been better off using voodoo dolls to choose Olympic hostesses, rather than 1.618.
Now, I suppose, in a society where the numbers 6 and 8 fetch a premium in pretty much any context, somebody in Shanghai government is bound to see value – much less, great auspiciousness – in a ratio incorporating both. And, in a China determined to leave no aspect of its Olympic self-promotion to chance, there must be some solace in knowing that the epitome of Chinese feminine beauty can be calculated. But the fact that members of Shanghai’s bureaucracy went out of their way to keep these numbers secret is a testament to the deep insecurities and pressures that riddle the ongoing preparations for these Olympics. I’m guessing here, but I’m fairly sure that this is just the beginning of the weirdness, not the end.
Six months later, I’ll stand by that.
Thanks for the update on this. I assumed that the standards were set by some dirty old bureaucrat in Beijing and Shanghai’s dirty old bureaucrats were following orders. You should really write something longer about this for publication.
I see a bunch of young, uniformly pretty girls drilled for the same presentation, the selection process overly strict and the requirements strained to absurdity, yet still this whole affair is much ado about nothing; an Olympiad that hosts competitions in sychronized team swimming and softball already has enough absurdity to entertain even the most cynical. Not even nitpickers will remember any of this after the Games, and the multi-coloured corps of vetted Chinese babes cannot compare to the televised rehearsal and ceremony of Grecian women dressed like naiads and traipsing about like aspiring ballerinas, presenting the Sacred Flame on tippy-toe as if they’d inherited the moves from their great, great grandmas. Now that was nonsense!
Scott – A fine response. Now allow me to disagree.
First, it’s never “much ado about nothing” when a Chinese newspaper is repudiated by government officials – and then that paper turns around and runs a front page defense of its reporting. I can’t think of too many (okay, NO) instances where that’s happened. So, for that reason alone, this is a story worth noting.
Second, we’re talking voodoo here. The fact that high-level bureaucrats are using something as far-fetched as the Golden Ratio tells us something about those … high-level bureaucrats. Just as Nancy Reagan’s employ of an astrologer told us something about her role in the Reagan White House.
Third, Chinese law expressly prohibits the use of these sorts of standards. There’s really no gray here. Now, of course, whether those laws are enforced is another matter. But, to my mind, that might be one reason why the Putuo officials denied the practice when confronted by the Xinmin Evening News.
Finally, whether or not this business is remembered really comes down to how it’s reported. Say, during the NBC-televised medal ceremonies, Bob Costas – for whatever reason – decides to tell America that the medal hostesses were chosen on the basis of the ratio between the length of their noses, and the width of their mouths. Will it be remembered? I think so.
That noted, all disagreement aside, I could not agree more in your assessment of the absurd torch lighting ceremony in Greece. Much less, the fact that it is regularly called the “sacred” torch lighting ceremony. Sacred to whom? Coca Cola and Lenovo?
Scott is right. Who cares?
hi, andar here, i just read your post. i like very much. agree to you, sir.
beijing olympics really taught us a lesson,from the hostess selection to the little girl lip-sync in the opening ceremony,which is it doesn’t matter what skill or talent u possess,it’s that how u look counts,maybe ppl find it superficial or shallow,we are chinese,we like to put our best face up front,who cares what’s inside,u won’t be able to see that anyway.
Tessa – Thanks for your comments. However, in this case, I must disagree, or at least suggest that – if you are correct – then the Chinese people drew the wrong conclusion. If the goal of the Beijing Olympics was to impress foreigners with China’s face, that was accomplished. But I can assure you that nobody outside of Chian was fooled into thinking that the face China showed during the Olympics was its “true” face. Foreign news reports mentioned the good air quality, yes, but they also mentioned the fact that it was a temporary matter. Other examples abound. In any event, “what’s inside” China isn’t as hard to see as many people think. And it’s nothing to hide, either! I’ve been in this country for six years, and every day I am impressed by the hard work and accomplishments of the Chinese people as they develop their country. Of course there are problems and things that the people would prefer to hide – but tell me a country where there aren’t problems?