Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile

A Tibetan teenager travels from Minneapolis to India to compete in a most unlikely beauty pageant. Long separated from their ancient homeland, Tibet’s exile community struggles to maintain a sense of tradition in the face of modernity, emblematic in the contradictions of the Miss Tibet pageant. While its suave organizer insists that he offers young Tibetans a chance to immerse themselves in their culture and language, critics take issue with the event’s decidedly un-Tibetan focus on outer beauty, replete with bikinis and catwalks.