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"I was thinking, 'Oh my god, I'm not even supposed to be in the top five!'"

Q: What did you think you would get out of it?
A: It was more of a challenge. Just to see how far I could get. And I wanted to go to Japan and be on the Train.

Q: How did you get to be one of the two girls?
A: They had interviews. The pageant director for Hawaii met with several girls and she picked two of us.

Q: Then they sent you to
Japan?
A: No, the pageant was in Honolulu. All the girls flew in from different states to Hawaii. They had the final contest in Hawaii, so we were there and everyone else came to us. Out of 102 girls they picked one winner.

Q: How did you do?
A: I didn't place. That was my first pageant and I was really inexperienced. I guess I wasn't answering the questions very well.

Q: Was it based more on interviews or on the looks?
A: More on the interviews. They had like six people going to Japan.

Q: Was this a big event?
A: It was at one of the hotel ballrooms and there were a couple of hundred people there. I think the advertisements weren't done very well.

Q: What did you do after that?
A: I started working part time.

Q: Doing what?
A: Sales at a gift shop in Ala Moana Shopping Center.

Q: Wearing a muumu?
A: No, no, no! We sold gifts and whatnot to tourists.

Q: How long did you do that?
A: About a year. I was going to school and working.

Q: How were you as a student at KCC?
A: I was good. I got As and Bs.

Q: Were you considered one of the smarter kids in high school or more of a partier?
A: I wasn't a partiers. I wasn't valedectorian, but I was never in detention.

Q: You weren't one of those kids hanging out under the banyans sipping gin which everyone else was in class?
A: No.

Q: When did you get involved with Miss Asian World?
A: In the summer of '88.

Q: How did that come about?
A: My mom came home one day and said there's a pageant going on. And they were going to have it in Taiwan. I said okay. I remember my mom saying, "Why don't you join just for the fun of it? Maybe you'll get to travel." The previous one they had it in the states. That was the first year they were going to have it outside the U.S.

Q: So this was all-Asian or part-Asian contestants?
A: Yeah. There were like 10 girls from Hawaii who went over with me. There were 42 girls all together.

Q: You were representing
Hawaii?
A: I was representing Miss U.S. Chinese.

Q: Did you have to go through something first?
A: Yeah, it was like a preliminary or whatnot and they chose like 10 girls.

Q: How did you do?
A: I won. So I ended up staying there for about two months.

Q: What months?
A: October and November.

Q: Around 10/10 when all the Chinese Americans go back.
A: Yeah, we were there for that.

Q: Where was it held?
A: At the sports arena and on China TV.

Q: What did you win?
A: I got a car.

Q: Wht kind?
A: I don't remember because they took it away from me as soon as I got it.

Q: Why?
A: They gave me cash instead.

Q: Just a promotional stunt?
A: Yeah. He's in there like, Okay, take pictures!

Q: How'd you like the pageant?
A: I don't think I'll ever go through another beauty pageant again because this one was quite long. We stayed there four weeks before the pageant. Every day we were going on excursions to different parts of Taipei to orphanages, old folks homes. It was so sad. I felt so grateful growing up in America because these people had nothing, you know, and these little kids in the orphanage--you fall in love with them.

Q: What did the promoters get out of having you parade through all those places?
A: Just coverage of the pageant. Every day we went to a different town. It got kind of tiring. PAGE 5

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