Karolina Shiino, a 26-year-old naturalised Japanese woman originally from Ukraine, has been obliged to give up her Miss Japan title after confessing to an affair with a married man. Shiino, whose parents are Ukrainian and who came to Japan aged 5, was awarded the title just two weeks ago. As the first non-ethnically Japanese woman to be crowned Miss Japan she had already generated a certain amount of controversy but the revelations about the affair, published in one of Japan’s weekly magazines, has brought her brief tenure to an inglorious end.

The pageant organisers had initially defended Shiino by claiming that she didn’t know her lover (who is an influencer known as the ‘muscle doctor’) was married, but on Monday she reportedly confessed to being aware of his marital status and carrying on the affair regardless. Shiino apologized for the trouble she had caused and for ‘betraying those who supported me’. The title will now remain vacant.

Was Shiino hounded out of the title for a trivial offence that would have been overlooked had she been a pure-blood native?

The Shiino affair (as it were) has provoked a debate in Japan as to what constitutes national identity. Japan is one of the few advanced nations where some still dare to interpret nationality as more than just a matter of a passport. I was laughed at once for suggesting that, if I cleared enough bureaucratic hurdles I could become, technically at least, Japanese – ‘You can never become Japanese’, I was solemnly told.

For many, Japaneseness is a state of mind, a deeply ingrained set of values and behaviours and an aesthetic sense that you are essentially born with. Whatever that amounts to, even the Japanese don’t fully understand it: as the writer Donald Ritchie put it: ‘Asking the Japanese about Japaneseness is like asking a fish about water.

QOSHE - Who cancelled Miss Japan? - Philip Patrick
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Who cancelled Miss Japan?

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07.02.2024

Karolina Shiino, a 26-year-old naturalised Japanese woman originally from Ukraine, has been obliged to give up her Miss Japan title after confessing to an affair with a married man. Shiino, whose parents are Ukrainian and who came to Japan aged 5, was awarded the title just two weeks ago. As the first non-ethnically Japanese woman to be crowned Miss Japan she had already generated a certain amount of controversy but the revelations about the affair, published in........

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