Another Foreign Beauty in the City

A group of Korean and Japanese students hang around the poolside of Cebu Pacific International Language Services after the day's last bell rings at 4:50pm-chattering about who's there and what's up.

Gliding down the swank stairs of the Annex building is a sophisticated, pretty Korean in a micro-mini skirt who (blame it on her long legs) made heads turn, making the males wish she's going to strip off, wear her two-piece, and hit the pool.

"No way," beauty queen cum model Hyang Mi Park recalls her tale of discovery by a hairstylist who had dragged this former Miss Busan, South Korea to the talent scout's shop and asked her to try out in a swimsuit. "I had never worn a swimsuit before and I didn't know how to walk."

At that time, the pageant's screening had already taken place one week ago. But the insistent agent called the organizers asking if they could include her promising protégé as the last candidate. As though luck fell on her porcelain-smooth lap, the bombshell-in-disguise found at a Busan downtown was not only accepted, she eventually emerged as one of the three crowned queens who, as soon as possible, were to pack up for the Miss Korea competition. "I didn't expect to win. Shortly before the contest started and all of us were preparing at the dressing room, I looked at the other girls and I felt insecure of myself. So my purpose was just for the experience, although deep inside I was shaking," Cynthia, as she is called by classmates and teachers, confesses.

During the national competition in South Korea's capital city of Seoul, Cynthia couldn't care less about ending up with the ultimate crown. She was happy enough to have landed in the Top 10, because her purpose was to represent her city the best she could, and enjoy every day of her one-month preparation with fellow candidates coming from the different cities of South Korea.

"My most unforgettable experience was the time spent with the comfort women, you know, the victims of Japanese soldiers' cruelty during the World War II. Every one of us cried," relates the 21-year-old English as a Second Language student of CPILS, where this writer also happens to be teaching.

No worries could bother Cynthia, even if Japanese students at a nearby table might be eavesdropping when she discusses Korea-Japan history beside the pool. "The past is past. I have nothing against its people," explains she, who interestingly resembles the 1993 Miss Asia Pacific Michelle Aldana. "It flatters me to think that I look like a Filipino beauty queen who made your country proud by winning in an international beauty title. Thank you."

Her first out-of-the-country travel was to Taiwan, when she was invited to promote Busan, together with Miss Fukuoka from Japan. Today, she cannot help but laugh when she looks back to that experience. "We didn't speak the same language. I couldn't speak English well at the time," Cynthia shares, with a trace of gratitude in her eyes (like those of Pocahontas'), for the CPILS training that polished her raw English skills. They had an interpreter, yes. But more than anything else, the smiles they exchanged did the talking.

The international trade university student and one of Busan's elite models is right now experiencing mixed emotions, since she will be flying back to Korea tomorrow, December 4.

Happy, because she's going to see her family and friends whom she's missed for three months. Sad, because she's leaving all the friends she has made from Cebu.

The statuesque CPILSian now looks over her shoulder to both the tutees and their tutors chatting about, and then turns back to me, "Here in Cebu, I've learned not only the importance of English but also the value of friendship."