The date of Monday January 22, 2024 is to be marked with a white stone in the land of the Rising Sun.
This is in fact the first time that a naturalized woman has won the prestigious Miss Japan competition, in a country where the notion of identity remains a subject of controversy.
If Carolina Shiino's coronation is controversial today, it is because for some it represents a significant evolution in Japanese mentalities, and for others, a total aberration.
Decryption.
To discover
George Clooney: tormented childhood, great love and secret ambitions
Download the Le Figaro Cuisine app for tasty and authentic recipes
Leadership, balance, career, money... A business coaching program for women
From Ukraine to Japan
Born in Ternopil, a city located in eastern Ukraine, Carolina Shiino was only 5 years old when she arrived in Japan accompanied by her parents, both Ukrainians.
Despite the many years she spent on Japanese soil, the young woman was not naturalized until 2022, at the age of 24.
“There were racial barriers and it was difficult to be accepted as Japanese,” Carolina Shiino reacted after her coronation.
Being recognized as Japanese in this competition fills me with gratitude.”
In Japan, Carolina Shiino's victory caused a reaction.
On the one hand, the "modernists" who consider that the coronation of the young woman turns the country towards the reality of its time, and on the other, fierce conservatives who rebel against the fact that she is not even not from Japanese parents.
According to them, the new Miss Japan is not “an authentic Japanese”, and should not represent the country in any way.
In anticipation of an inevitable controversy, Ai Wada, the organizer of the Miss Japan Grand Prix, declared to the
BBC
on January 24 that Carolina Shiino had been chosen with "full confidence", due to her perfect mastery of the language and techniques. habits and customs of the country, even going so far as to say that the young woman was “more Japanese [than them]”.
This is not the first time that the question of identity has arisen, during a Miss Japan election.
In 2015, when Ariana Miyamoto (born to an African-American father and a Japanese mother) won the competition, a large number of degrading comments and insults circulated against her, with some Internet users calling her a "hafu" , a term coming from the English “half”, which would mean that she is only half Japanese and that she is therefore not “pure blood”.
A year later, it is the turn of Priyanka Yoshikawa, Japanese of Indian origin, to face shameful insults following her election to the Miss Japan 2016 competition.
An identity controversy which reveals all the ambivalence and duality of Japan, where conservatism clashes with the desires for modernity of part of the population.
As the first Miss Japan to be naturalized, Carolina Shiino is today the symbol of a significant advance in mentalities in the country of the Rising Sun, although her coronation remains strongly contested.