For many young women like Jiliemore'amu living in the mountainous area of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, in Sichuan Province, the Torch Festival is likely to be the most anticipated holiday of the year.

Dreams of becoming a beauty queen are fulfilled or dashed on the last day of the festival when the contest curtain rises.

An age-old tradition, it is open to all young women of the Yi minority, married or single.

"I think every little Yi girl dreams of winning some type of a beauty contest," said Jiliemore'amu, who was born and grew up in a small village of Tuojue Town in Liangshan.

"Ever since our childhood, we've heard many tales about the legendary beauties of the Yi minority," she explained.

But the 18-year-old hardly expected she would take the crown at last summer's contest in Tuojue where she competed against over 100 other girls.

"I was shocked with the outcome, and just covered my flushed face with my hands when people gathered around to congratulate me," she recalled.

In addition to the title of "Yi Beauty," Jiliemore'amu went home with a prize of 100 yuan (US$12).

Her fame was soon known to all the people in her village and in the days following the contest, many young men and matchmakers frequented her home with attractive proposals.

But for those winners already married the post-contest experience is different and not so life-changing.

"I did become the pride of my family after the contest," recalled Ali'eliang who came second in a contest held in Butuo County in 1999. Her family held a great celebration to mark her success, but the title of "Yi Beauty"brought few changes to her life.

"I'm still an ordinary married woman, doing household chores, taking care of my in-laws and helping my husband," she said.

Age-old tradition

For the Yi people, the beauty contests are more about tradition than anything else, according to Lawai, a local official of Tuojue Town.

Dating back to the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), they are still as alive today as ever. Many villages, towns and counties crown their own beauty queens at the Torch Festival which falls on the sixth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

"Held at an open-air venue, it is far from typical of beauty contests in other parts of the world. There is no catwalk, stage lights or backstage. And contestants do their own make-up in a corn field near the venue," said Lawai.

Young women spend several months, sometimes even a year, preparing for the event.

With the help of their family and friends, they make their own costumes. These usually include a hat decorated with flower and bird patterns, a pleated, red and blue woollen skirt and black or white shawl.

An absolute must is a yellow parasol, which is practical as much as decorative, and shields contestants from the scorching high-altitude sun.

But preparations go way beyond the outward adornments and natural beauty.

The highlight of the beauty contest is duoluohe, a traditional song-and-dance performance unique to the Yi minority.

"Contestants have to rehearse for several months before strutting their stuff in the competition," Lawai explained.

The Yi have developed their own criteria of beauty: A tall and well-formed figure, healthy skin, thin lips, sparkling eyes, curved eyelashes and, long and beautiful hair are the epitome.

"But we also believe beauty is not just skin-deep," said Rezi, one of the judges at last year's contest held in Tuojue.

To be a winner, contestants must be hard-working and have a good personality.

Crowd puller

Thousands of locals, old and young, men and women, flock from neighboring areas to watch the contests. Gaily dressed in their traditional colored garb, they throng the roads leading to the venue.

At noon the curtain rises on the competition with a performance of duoluohe.

Young contestants wear white shawls and pleated skirts and hold a parasol. Split into teams, each forms a circle and the singing and dancing begins.

The sunlight flitting through the yellow parasols illuminates each face. And the scores of yellow parasols waving with the girls' every movement are like a field of golden poppies, suddenly sprung up.

Judges move from one team to another, watching them dance, listening to them sing.

"It's not an easy job to choose the most beautiful ones from among so many dazzling women," said Rezi.

The melodies and swirling colorful skirts, not surprisingly, attract many young men, who approach and flirt with the girls.

"The event is a good opportunity to start a courtship. Many young men and women meet during the contests and later become engaged," he adds.

Wrestling bouts and horse racing meanwhile, are played out on the sidelines of the beauty contests. Occasionally, the young women slip away to the woods for a rest, returning refreshed to continue dancing and singing until dusk when the judges announce the winners.

Changing values

Though the beauty contest tradition remains strong among the Yi people in Liangshan, the past two decades have seen it hit by a whirlwind of change.

As the country becomes a more open and market-orientated society, local governments have realized the economic worth to be had from exploiting folk culture, particularly as a means of alleviating poverty in those backward areas where it often prevails.

Consequently, more and more contests are now held on stage, instead of the simple open-air venues of old. And the panel of judges, once made up of senior clan members, now mostly comprise local officials or folk culture experts, as local governments take over the role of organizers of such events.

The First Liangshan Beauty Contest organized by the prefecture government was held in 1989 and it has since become an annual event drawing tourists and featuring dozens of stage performers.

And a great number of well-educated Yi women have started to tread the beauty contest catwalk.

"It's not just about looks," said Rezi. "Many girls with a higher education are able to present themselves in a more confident, attractive manner."

Qubimoshazuo, one of the winners of the Liangshan Beauty Contest held in Xichang last year, described her experience when competing against 60 other girls from across the prefecture.

"Most of the girls had degrees and had a specialist skill in dancing, singing, English or art," she recalled.

"It's completely different from the contests we used to know about. "The catwalk, the stage lights, our dresses and make-up -- everything was modern," she added

At another televised contest the organizers invited viewers and the live audience to vote via telephone or the Internet for their favorite "beauty queen."

Rather than providing an opportunity to meet a marriage partner, the contests nowadays offer a stepping-stone for young women to pursue a new career.

Qubimoshazuo and other recent winners were offered jobs as air-hostesses with Sichuan Airlines.

None, however, took up the offers.

One of the winners Lama'aniu, a 19-year-old college student, insisted that she would not give up her schooling, even though the offer was pretty attractive.

(China Daily March 7, 2005)