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Subject: MTQI real color came out...What a shame!

Author: Booooo MTQI

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 00:03:24 04/03/08 Thu Amy Holbrook - Miss America (USA) leaving MTQI Pageant - read her blog! Cant stand the pageant organizers... http://www.amylynnholbrook.com Shared Concerns. I love participating in international beauty pageants but I have some important concerns about this competition. There are 115 girls here with little to no official organization. Each night, we are given a total of 4 to 5 hours to sleep each night and the girls are getting sick with no medical care. They finally took one of the poor girls to the hospital after 3 days with a serious ailment. Also, we have not had a proper meal in days and all most of us have been eating is bread, cakes, and rice, and french fries!! I rarely eat all of this but I have to eat something! I am not just being picky either. I don’t know too many people that are willing to try “Sea Cucumber in Blueberry Juice” or “Fermented Bean Skin”. We have no place to buy food during the day. Some of the girls have asked for feminine products and we have been unable to buy them. This is totally unacceptable for me. Lastly, the security does very little to protect us. They stand around while the Chinese tourists are aggressive with us, poking us and pulling us so we will come take a photo with them. Some of the girls have had their hair pulled by tourists when they tried to walk away! I know they are excited but I do not think it is right to let them do this. A few of the organizers are constantly rude to us. They bang loudly on the door when the doorbell would do just fine. They are always screaming and stressed out. I realized they are trying to gather over 115 girls but it is unfair to us that they have not planned the events properly before we arrived. Also, the evening gown competition we had a few nights ago was in 40 F (7 C) weather outside. Some of the girls were sick the next morning. Yesterday, we were required to wear cocktail dresses in freezing weather while we hiked down steep terrain equivilant to the Grand Canyon. We have visited many businesses to take group photos with the staff but we never actually get to experience the tourist sites which is very disappointing since China is such a beautiful country and we have only seen it from the bus rides. We have no formal itinerary and no idea what the wear, where to go, or what city we a currently in. I have no idea where I am. Most of the girls have been unable to call home because they cannot find a shop to buy an international phone card and no one seems to help the problem. After 5 days, someone finally bought the girls phone cards but they were for domestic use only and were not useful to call home. With all of the international news about China, it is very important for everyone’s parents to know that they are safe and well. Thankfully, I have an iPhone that works internationally at all times. I have let some of the girls use my phone because they cannot call their families otherwise. They took our passports for “safe keeping”. The real reason they take the passports is so we cannot decide to go home on our own. I know that there have been a lot of changes since Mr. See passed away and it is possible that the pageant was changed to new hands but it seems like the organization as a whole is half hearted and that they do not truly care about us. They seemed to have thrown this pageant together in a matter of weeks because the planning has been awful. I feel bad for the few members of the staff that truly have their heart in assisting the girls and making this an enjoyable experience for everyone. There is a very special woman from Australia who has been extremely helpful to all of us and she is the only one I feel safe with. All I am asking for is a good wholesome meal and 8 hours of sleep. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Hospital Of Horrors. i ended up going to the hospital aFter walking around with a stomach ache all day. i had a mass exodus of junk from both ends. yum-yum. my roommate, miss aRmenia, stayed in all day today with the same stomach bug. there are about 15 girls that have ended up with the same illness. when i told one of the staff that i wasn’t fEEling well, she gave me amway mint breath spray as medicine. wow…let me contain my enthusiasm. the docTor came in and started poking me violently in the stomach asking if it hurt. of course it hurt!!! then she told both lucine and me that we had appendicitis. well, using my best judgement, i knew it was nearly impossible that we both had appendicitis but we were forced to go to the hospital anyway. at the hospital, it was just more poking and chInese people screaming at each other. i was given a look of distain when they wanted to stick me with a catheter drip and i refused it, especially after viewing the very unsanitary conditions of the hospital. there was no way that i was about to let a small town chinese hospital stick a dirty needle in my arm for a simple stomach ache caused by lack of sleep and food poisoning. i called my md and attorney, dr. douglas holBrook, and asked him what to do. he supported my decision to deny treatment for appendicitis and i had to sign a paper at the hospital to release myself from the treatment. i had to explain thE situation but I think the photos of the hospital speak for themselves. i have posted photos of the hallway, patient’s toileT, and the sink to wash your hands after the bathroom. yikes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miss TQI, SURVIVOR EDITION!!! Dear World, It has come to my attention that some websites that are reporting about the excellent time the girls are having at this pageant. My question to them is “Are you here experiencing it with us?”…. Secondly, “Are you insane?”….. Since when did freezing to death in banana colored track suits, being fed marinated animal part delicacies, and sleeping for 3 to 4 hours each night constitute as fun??? Of course the girls are going to smile and say that they are having a great time. This IS a pageant and the overall goal should be to win. I leave many details out of my blogs for my own safety here in China but let me tell you that the conditions are less that stellar. This pageant should be called “MISS TQI, SURVIVOR EDITION”. The girl who doesn’t die at the end, wins! Let me also say that China is NOT the problem. I have visited the country before and I loved my time here. I LOVE CHINA and everything about its rich culture. This pageant reflects very poorly on China for the girls who have never visited before and that saddens me. International pageants have been instrumental to my personal growth, thoughts, ideas, and goals. I have represented the USA in other international pageants and I loved every experience. For most of the girls, this is their first international experience and I’m afraid they are getting the wrong impression about what pageants are really about. I hope this reaches the big man upstairs who was put in charge of financing this train wreck. FOLLOW UP WRITE UP I thought I was going to have quite the international incident this evening when the official for the Miss TQI pageant payed me a visit in my room and told me that I was in jepordy of being deported from China because of my free speech blog about the organizers in this pageant. This woman from the pageant's press team told me that I needed to meet with the governer of this city (Kaifeng) and the chairman of this pageant to discuss what I had written in my blog (which I vow is all very true and realistic). I was called up to meet with them so they could decide if I would ever be allowed back into China after being honest about my pageant experience. I went up to meet with these two men. There was one journalist and two translators. There was another woman there who spoke Chinese only and I don't know who she is. When the chairman walked in, I stood up and greeted him in Chinese. The lady from the press made a heavy sigh of relief because she was worried that I would be deported right away. The chairman smiled and we got on with it. We discussed the concerns I had written in my blog. The first thing they showed me was a letter sent around to all 120 of the national directors by an anonymous email address and no signature. In fact, they thought that I knew the person who sent it!! I have no idea who this person is but they certainly took my information and ran with it! I told them that I did not know who this email address belonged to. It is really not shocking at all that some would send this around but it must be someone that is on the inside because they had EVERY NATIONAL DIRECTOR'S EMAIL ADDRESS!!! The food and sleep issue were both addressed. I was told that the Chinese people did not know that the word "Vegetarian" meant "NO MEAT". They thought it meant a lot of vegetables in a dish with a little sprinkle of meat. They said that they wanted to accomodate me now. I told them what Jerome Too said to me about not allowing Vegetarian girls into the competition next year. I told them that I was given my passport and he told me that I needed to make my own arrangements to get home.I told them how much he had offended me by his comments and lack of care. They told me to ignore him because he is just rude like this to everyone. They assured me that they would make the plans for me to go home if I truly was going to leave. Then we talked about the temperature. They said that the cold weather was unexpected. I asked for blankets for the girls to have during our outdoor outings when track suits are required so we will not freeze outside anymore. Lastly, they asked me to take down my blog. I didn't say anything. Then they told me that I was allowed to keep the blog up but that I needed to write a retraction statement NOW. I asked what they wanted me to type in the blog. They sad that I needed to say that "this was just a cultural understanding". hmm... Then they told me that they wanted very much for me to stay and hoped that I could enjoy China. Then they told me that if I went home, the other girls would all want to go home too. I was told very clearly that the organizers spent over $4 million on this pageant and that the Chairman would go to prison if I left the pageant and all the other girls started to leave. He said this because it is true in China or anywhere if you get sponsors, they spend money, and then no spokes models show up. I said that this is my 2nd time in China and I made the choice to return because "I love China and its rich culture". Xie xie. Then I said that I would need to contact my national director and organizer Jeep Malone and that I would appreciate it if I could give them my decision in the morning. BOOOOOO GLOBALBEAUTIES!!!! Henrique needs to return the money given to him to promote MTQI. He is part of the problem and a culprit. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]