What does it mean to be Japanese? Ukraine-born model wins Miss Japan, social media backlash follows

From questions of race to identity issues, Miss Japan pageant winner Carolina Shiino has heard them all. The Ukrainian-born model speaks in impeccable Japanese but because she looks “too European” (as argued by many on social media), people aren’t too happy about her win. Even as she won the pageant and was crowned, Carolina was seen shedding a tear or two about all the challenges she’s faced on the way to being accepted as Japanese. 

Carolina is a 26-year-old model who was born in Ukraine. She moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya. She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant. But she has raised many eyebrows, with people asking 'What does it take to be Japanese?' since she doesn't have the visual features. 

Her win comes nearly 10 years after Ariana Miyamoto became the first bi-racial woman to be crowned Miss Japan in 2015. Back then, Ariana had a tough time being of mixed race as her mother was Japanese and her father was an African American. Cut to 2023, Carolina Shiino has no Japanese parentage.

As soon as the news of her win surfaced on social media, people started posting stuff like, "This person who was chosen as Miss Japan is not even a mix of Japanese but 100% pure Ukrainian. Understand she is beautiful, but this is 'Miss Japan'. Where is the Japaneseness?" 

Another X user wrote, “If she was half [Japanese], sure no problem. But she's ethnically 0% Japanese and wasn't even born in Japan.”

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Others said her win was sending the "wrong message" to others in the country. One user wrote, "I think that Japanese people naturally (would) get the wrong message when a European-looking person is called the most beautiful Japanese."

Meanwhile, Carolina, earlier last year wrote on Instagram that she "may not look Japanese", but her mind had "become Japanese" because she had grown up in Japan. On her win, she said that winning the Miss Japan 2024 title was "a dream". "Being recognised as a Japanese in this competition fills me with gratitude,” she added.