An uproar in Japan surrounding the annual beauty pageant, Miss Japan, which was won by a 26-year-old girl, Karolina Shaino, a citizen of the country who came to the country from Ukraine with her family at the age of five.
The fans of the annual competition are angry with the judges due to the fact that the regulations state that the crown is awarded to the contestant who represents the "beauty that is so important to Japanese women".
The decision to choose a young woman with a European appearance raised many questions regarding the Japanese standard of beauty and what it means to be Japanese in general.
Shayno lives in the city of Nagoya and is a fluent Japanese speaker.
In a conversation with the CNN network, she expressed hope that the win will change opinions in Japan regarding who can be considered Japanese.
"I wanted to be known as Japanese" she added and told about the difficulty of being accepted in the local company due to her different appearance.
"We live today in an era where there is a lot of diversity among people. There are many people like me who have a gap between their appearance and who they are. I have always been told that I am not Japanese but I feel completely Japanese and that is why I also entered this Miss Japan competition out of a real connection and from the fact That's how I see myself."
The current storm comes against the backdrop of the cultural change that Japan has been undergoing in recent years.
To begin with, this is a very homogeneous country from an ethnic point of view, and in the past there was very little immigration to it.
However, the aging of the population and the fact that in Japan itself few families have children, caused the country's government to act to bring in foreign residents to balance the country's demographic situation.
Carolina Shayno / Photo: EPA
In any case, in relation to Carolina's win, the social networks in Japan were significantly divided.
"Carolina, she is Japanese in her nationality, so there is nothing wrong with her victory," wrote a local commentator on the X network.
Other surfers expressed their appreciation for the model's love for her country.
"There are many Japanese who do not appreciate Japan, so why do people have a problem with the fact that she cherishes our country that she has lived in since the age of five" said user X.
However, many others, on the other hand, raised the question of whether a citizen can represent the ideal of Japanese beauty that is tested in the Nippon beauty contest.
"It is true that racial discrimination must not be accepted in any way, but the competition is apparently based on the standards of Japanese beauty. In fact, when a woman like Karolina Shino comes to such a competition as Japanese, there is no chance for a local Japanese woman to win the competition, since beauty will now be measured by the standards of modern international beauty," wrote historian Hiro Yamashita .
Carolina Shino's win comes ten years after Ariana Meimoto won the competition, who was the first biracial contestant in the competition.
Meimoto, not only participated in the local competition but also represented Japan that year in the Miss Universe competition.
But then it was a half-Japanese young woman, while now it is a completely Ukrainian winner.
As mentioned, Miss Japan is a unique Japanese face beauty contest that was launched for the first time in 1950 under the auspices of the country's largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun.
The purpose of the contest then was to select a Japanese ambassador of goodwill who would come to the United States and claim Japan's gratitude for the humanitarian support that the United States supported in Japan after World War II.
The competition, which was inactive for 15 years, was revived by the Japanese artist and health and beauty icon Shizu Da, in 1967 and since then it has been operated by his family and now his granddaughter organizes this competition.
In the judges' reasoning regarding Sheino's current selection, it is stated that she is "a hard-working and modest Japanese woman who is very considerate of others."
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