From catwalk to media spotlight

From catwalk to media spotlight

M. Taufiqurrahman & Karen Stingemore, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

When Nadine Chandrawinata was named Miss Indonesia 2005 by a
panel of judges in the country's most celebrated beauty contest,
people could not help but think that the 21-year-old Jakarta
delegate had won the title simply because of her physical
appearance.

Nadine's statuesque figure towered above those of other
contestants and her Eurasian face had a complexion that easily
won over the jury.

Despite her physical appearance, the unsuspecting public --
who believed the hype that the contest was about brain and beauty
in which the former would take precedence over the latter --
would not place their bets on Nadine and was convinced that
either TV anchor Valerina Novita Daniel or Javanese beauty Lindi
Chistia Prabha would be named the winner.

The chances for Nadine to win the contest looked slim when she
gave a stuttering and incorrect answer to a question posed by a
panel member about what Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai had done
to deserve the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

The crowd at the Jakarta Convention Center, the venue where
the contest was staged, and those who watched the contest in a
live telecast, even booed Nadine for her inaccurate answer.

However, Nadine managed to turn the tables in her favor by
impressing the panel of judges who sought her opinion on the true
meaning of friendship.

"True friends will stand by your side in good times or bad.
They are unlike our shadow, which disappears when darkness
comes," she told the panel of judges, in a face gleaming with
confidence.

The judges were highly enamored by her reply and rushed to
give their decision in favor of Nadine.

Panel member Dewi Motik Pramono said that rarely did a young
person still believe in such old-fashioned wisdom. "The answer is
enough to convince us that Nadine was the one we were looking
for," Dewi said the night after the contest wrapped up.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post after the crowning night, Nadine
said she was still bewildered by her ability to get her act
together so hastily and brilliantly respond to the tricky
question.

"You know, I'd never spoken in public before; it was my first
time speaking in front of such a big crowd," Nadine recalled.

Small wonder that newly crowned Miss Indonesia had rarely
spoken in public before the final as her daytime job did not
require such a skill.

Prior to plunging herself into the contest, Nadine was a
catwalk model, an occupation that also landed her roles in
several TV commercials.

Following the path already traversed by hundreds of models who
had come before her, Nadine also appeared in several sinetron (TV
soap operas).

In an industry notorious for glorifying the ideal of beauty in
women, Nadine's physical attributes helped her to stay a little
longer in the game.

Born in Hanover, Germany, on May 8, 1984, to an Indonesian
father and German mother, Nadine said that she was an authentic
Indonesian and the European country served only as her land of
birth.

Her Eurasian background, however, did not prevent her from
building a good rapport with her peers.

Nadine took her plunge into the world of modeling in early
2002, after being persuaded to do so by her family and friends.

It was also her friends, some from her childhood, that
convinced her to enter the Miss Indonesia 2005 contest.

Nadine agreed and went ahead. "Although I'm a Eurasian, it
didn't mean that I couldn't take part in the contest. I'm an
Indonesian citizen -- it is printed so on my ID card," she said.

Nadine, who weighs 52 kilograms and stands 174 centimeters
tall, entered the contest with no particular expectations. "At
first, I wasn't confident of winning because there were so many
contestants who seemed so much smarter than I," Nadine said in a
self-effacing tone.

Now that she has been declared Miss Indonesia 2005, Nadine
said that she was ready to fulfill whatever expectations would be
required from the new titleholder, including staving off possible
controversies that might arise from her participation in the
future Miss Universe contest, which the Miss Indonesia
titleholder is entitled to enter.

Earlier this year, Miss Indonesia 2004, Artika Sari Dewi, left
for the Miss Universe contest in Bangkok, Thailand, in the throes
of mounting controversy that her participation went against the
moral and religious mores adhered to by most of the country's
population, or at least its conservatives.

Miss Universe controversies may still be far ahead, but there
is a more immediate matter that she needs to respond to -- the
suggestion that she was elected Miss Indonesia 2005 simply on the
basis of her good, Eurasian looks.

"I was elected because I was unique; it was the panel of
judges that made the decision: I did nothing to influence it,"
she said in a carefully crafted statement.

The good-natured and carefree resident of Bintaro, a suburb to
the south of Jakarta, seemed to be taking all the doubts in her
stride and is now concerned more than ever to improve her public-
speaking skills.

"In the Miss Universe contest, I shall be up against people
who are smarter than I; therefore, I really need to take a public
speaking and English course," she concluded.