Miss Exhibition Pageants

Miss Exhibition Pageant was first organized in the 10th Exhibition of Hong Kong Products to draw people’s attention to the role women played in the industrial sector and to arouse women’s interest in working for industry. In light of this, Exhibition organizers select candidates based on their appearance and also their work quality. The 1st Miss Exhibition Pageant was divided into semi-finals and finals. Based on the scores given by a selection panel members, the 10 candidates with the highest scores would enter the finals. The final session was conducted in form of a seminar to select the first three award winners. The awards were donated by manufacturers and comprised mainly clothes, candy and biscuits. The first and most well-known Miss Exhibition was Ms. Feng Yi Wei, who was the second runner-up in the contest, representing a food additive manufactory. She later became a movie actress.

Starting from the 15th Exhibition of Hong Kong Products (1956-1957), Miss Exhibition Pageant was revamped and Miss Exhibition was voted by visitors of the exhibitions. The organizer placed photos of the contestants onto individual voting boxes so that visitors can place their ticket stubs into the box of their chosen candidate. In that Exhibition, the winner of the Pageant was the booth lady of Freezinhot Bottle Co., Ltd., who scored 76 thousand votes.

Miss Exhibition was one of the gimmicks for each exhibition. The selection process was however rather controversial. Commentaries have criticized the pageant as demeaning to women. In the 11th Exhibition of Hong Kong Products, no winners were selected because of insufficient votes. Although rumors about the Pageant were rampant, exhibition booth models were eager to participate in the competition every year. They dressed themselves up and served as promoter for different brands and products at various exhibition booths. A number of Miss Exhibition winners had attended auditions at the Shaw’s Studio, making the event a shortcut to join the entertainment sector.