True Beauty Is From Inside: Miss NTD Candidate Lisa Mu

Excitement is growing with a countdown to the grand final of Miss NTD, the global television network NTD’s first-ever beauty pageant.

Women of Chinese descent from all over the world will compete for a chance to be crowned “Miss NTD.”

Speaking ahead of the big event, Lisa Mu, an Australian-based candidate, shared what the competition meant to her.

“I never thought that I would participate in a beauty pageant one day,” said Ms. Mu, who earned a master’s degree in engineering.

“I think beauty is a concept that may be more philosophical,” she said. “Everyone has their own sense of what beauty is.”

Asked about her interpretation, Ms. Mu associated it with one’s soul.

“Beauty is a reflection of one’s internal world, an extension of inner beauty,” she said. “I think the NTD’s competition is very focused on your inner self.”

While participants are conventionally attractive, it’s not the most good-looking who could win.

As part of a series of NTD competitions that aimed at promoting traditional values and cultures, the judging panel of the Global Chinese Beauty Pageant said the emphasis will be placed on the beauty within. Morality, righteousness, propriety, benevolence, and faithfulness, the most valued virtues in Chinese tradition, are what the judges look for in selecting the winner.

By focusing on traditional values, organizers hope to bring “pure authenticity, pure goodness, and pure beauty” back to the modern world.

That mission, Ms. Mu said, was what made her decide to apply.

“I think this is very meaningful,” said Ms. Mu. “It provides an opportunity to let everyone understand the beauty of traditional culture”

Inspiration

“When I was preparing for the competition, I learned some historical figures and events, as well as poetry,” Ms. Mu said.

Visitors are taking photos in a park dedicated to Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu, in Chengdu, in southwest China's Sichuan Province on March 24, 2016. The park is built around the site of a former home of Du Fu, who stayed there for four years from A.D. 759. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

She shared how she was inspired by the verse of Du Fu (A.D. 712–770), one of China’s most famous poets from the Tang Dynasty.

In 759, during political turmoil, Du Fu resigned from his governmental post and moved to the south mountainous city of Chengdu to take refuge. But after living in the capital for ten years with little income, the 48-year-old post couldn’t afford to buy a house. Fortunately, his friends and relatives offered financial assistance, enabling Du Fu to build a thatched hut near a creek, where he and his family stayed for nearly five years. Though life was still wracked by poverty and illness, Du Fu’s depiction shows more sympathy for people.

One night in August 761, the cottage was unroofed by gales. The thatch flew over the river and some sank into the pond. While the wind subsided shortly, the rain started to fall fast, dripping onto the bed and soaking everywhere. Wet through, Du Fu wrote a poem, translated here by a renowned Chinese translator Xu Yuanchong.

“Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I’d house all scholars poor and make them beam with smiles. In wind and rain these mansions would stand like mountains high. Alas! Should these houses appear before my eye, Frozen in my unroofed cot, content I’d die.”

“It’s a very peaceful mind,” Ms. Mu said. Even in such a tough situation, the poet remained unflappable.

That inspired her to see life through a new lens.

“I used to try to control every aspect of my life. Now, I could try to focus on what is right in front of me and strive to do it well,“ she said. That’s because she understands ”the future is always unknown.”

She wishes she could be like Du Fu, staying open to both joy and suffering.

“If I could stay calm even in hard times, and remain humble in the face of compliments, I believe I will go far in life,” she said. “Only after adversity can people grow.”

Participating in the NTD’s competition, she added, was actually driven by a “longing for the traditional culture.”

“These [traditional virtues] are our ancestors gave us and that’s what we could leave behind for the future [generation].”

Ms. Mu, along with other Miss NTD hopefuls, will head to upstate New York for the big event, which kicks off on Sept. 24 until Sept. 30. The 40 finalists will take to the stage at the SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center to show their understanding of beauty and compete for the glitzy tiara.

Tickets are now on sale at 929-999-1168 or online here.