The Cunning Mind of an Artful Linguist – Episode 1: Miss Universe 2008 – A Polyglot’s Paradise

out wrinkles (and makes money) for transnational organizations working in the region. This is the first in a series

of blog-entries that I will be posting here to show how language can form the base to a business that’s not only

rewarding, but also downright FUN!

almost 2 weeks with some of the most gorgeous women on the planet in a place that comes pretty close to

paradise.

polyglot Adam Dedman (interpreter for Miss Japan – Harvard graduate and fluent in English, Thai, Japanese and

Spanish) for our Vietnam Airlines domestic flight to Nha Trang.

Pointing over to a prop-jet with a flat tyre being dragged across the tarmac in the distance of an airport that I

imagine hadn’t changed much since the war, Adam commented “Well I’m glad we’re not travelling on that thing!”.

Adam was sadly mistaken. We boarded the plane and bumped through the air for another 50 minutes until we

landed again safely in Nha Trang.

we arrived at the baggage carousel to be greeted by Miss Universe 2007-08 herself Riyo Mori. Dressed in a

humble beach dress and flip-flops, Riyo took us in her limo back to our resort – ‘Vin Pearl’ with her bodyguard.

Having been there for a week or so already, she was pretty pressed for interesting things to do. Luckily, she and

Adam were already like brother and sister from the previous year and meeting us at the airport probably made

for some of the best comic relief she’d had in days J

That set the scene for the rest of the trip. Gorgeous women, amazing beaches, celebrities, security zealots and

the largest pool you’ve ever seen in your life – 10,000sqm!!!

others from countries like Venezuela, Colombia, USA, Japan and Korea have been in almost military-like training

under the elegant whip of the likes of Ines Ligron for months before the event. Some of the girls

overestimate their ability in English and opt to answer the questions during their first interview in English, thinking

that they will come across as more ‘international’. For a few, this works, but for many others it can signal certain

death.

the interpreters get to know the girls, the better their answers can be ‘interpreted’ / rendered faithfully before the

judges.

Crown – It’s all in the Semantics!

work together is during their first panel interview.

discussions with people at all different levels involved in the pageant, I can say that the judges are looking for

someone that can carry the MU brand well, someone who is ‘interesting’, someone with a little bit more to them

than just their face and body, a degree of spunk / sex appeal and someone with a decent level of humility /

human relations skills.

they had? The passions etc. In the past some people have been caught out. On that note – if you say you are

passionate about museums, make sure you know what museums exist in your home city!

Another theme that came out was trying to find out how ‘vindictive’ or competitive they might be. Questions

like ‘who would you most like see to lose out of all the girls?’ or ‘who would you most like to step into the ring with

in a Thai Boxing match?’

room. There are partitions up at the other end with two panels of around 5-6 judges seated – one group on the left

and one group on the right. The girls are then broken into smaller groups in alphabetical order of country and

taken up to the entry of the partitioned section and seated until it’s their turn. Two girls go in at a time. They have

3 minutes to be questioned by each of the two panels of judges.

**The question was:
**

“How do you feel about girls how have had plastic surgery done to make

their faces look more beautiful?”

**Kaem’s response was something like:
**

ให้มา”

**Direct Translation:
**

“If you’ve had your face operated on and it looks better than it originally looked, I don’t have any

problem with that. On the other hand, if you’ve had plastic surgery and look uglier than you did before the

operation, it’s a bit scary. As for me, I’m lucky to have been born with a face like this. I’m happy with what I was

given by nature”.

**Idiomatic Translation
**

“If you’ve had a face-job and it’s made you look better than before, great! On the other hand, you’d

have to be a little bit worried if you went through an operation like that only to come out on the other side worse

for wear. As for me, I’m happy with the cards that God has dealt me.”

**Are the two answers different?
**

In the second answer, I interpreted the facial expressions, idioms used, pauses in conversation etc. to try

and evoke the same sort of mood that her Thai response would have evoked in a native speaker of Thai.

**The Verdict
**

Kaem’s response seemed to have gone down well with the judges.

Vicente De la Vega – CEO of Precision translation

based in Miami Florida has been the official interpreting company for the Miss Universe pageants for around 24

years now. Each year he puts a team of some of the most talented linguists / polyglots that you’d ever want to

meet. Some of them have done the pageants for many many years – and in doing that, and being so close to

both the management and the girls, they get a pretty good idea of how things run – what the judges are thinking

and who’s likely to take the prize. Each day in our group, we’d have lists drawn up of who we thought would get

into the top 15, top 10, top 5 and the ultimate winner. Depending on how we saw the girls perform each day, our

lists would chop and change. The scary thing is, that from the many lists that we had going round, many of them

were very accurate when compared to the final results.

day no matter whether you’re actually on the stage, taking a break, eating your meal, waking up in the morning,

going to the bathroom, speaking on your mobile phone, meeting with friends / visitors – NO MATTER

WHAT YOU’RE DOING, YOU’RE BEING JUDGED / SEEN BY SOMEONE. In light of that, when they

say that you CAN dress casually, they want to see how you will interpret that? Are you still going to look elegant

during grueling rehearsals, or will you look like something the cat dragged in? A bit harsh, but true. Some people

like Miss Japan, Korea, Venezuela, Columbia, Mexico etc looked amazing around the clock, others looked like

they were taking little Johnny to a Saturday football match.

posting to her blog (http://www.inesligron.com/), she will have hundreds of thousands of hits within a

few hours. The directors of MU read her blog and I suspect this trickles down to the judges too. In Vietnam, there

was even one girl and her entourage (that I think might have been one sandwich short of a full picnic basket)

following her, Hiroko and Riyo in almost stalker fashion with a flag / blanket that they had toured around Japan

with to get over 10,000 signatures). Very Japanese, very weird, but is testament to Ines’ fame of late. Two of her

girls this year – Japan and Korea were noticeably polished compared to many others there, and from what I

hear, many other countries are knocking on her door to have her take their girls under her wing in 2009.

The business opportunities that this movement presents are amazing, and I believe are ripe for the

picking for any linguistically / culturally in-tune mind with good human relations and facilitation skills. Watch this

space!

CEO’s, government leaders, fashion designers, photographers and people from every other back-ground

imaginable – and of course one of the ladies that I think is the backbone to a lot of the event is Annette Cammer

from the MU Organization. It was a networker’s paradise.

than I found myself making my way to a fabrication plant to work with over 2,000 grease covered workers

assembling an off-shore LPG gas installation.

from other sectors, has developed a product that is extremely rare and making / saving a lot of $$$ for

companies around the globe.

I really hope that this story and future stories will inspire other people with a passion for people and

languages, to ply it into a business that can be packaged, marketed and sold to the world.