Princesses Can Be Any Gender
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| August 2021 Princesses |
The tourism board in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture has held yearly contests to choose single women known as princesses to serve as tourism ambassadors. It has just announced that it will no longer require the princesses to be single or to be women, saying the change comes out of "a consideration for the changing times". The title of the position will remain "Princess", but the recruitment is open to anyone over the age of 18 who lives, studies, or works in Nara Prefecture, excluding high schoolers.
Previously the ambassadors were know as "Kashihara Campaign Lady", but this name was changed in 2009. This year the application deadline is May 6th. Three Princesses will be chosen to fulfill the role at events taking place about 30 days a year.
3 comments:
When I was a t teenager and lived in Sweden this 'Miss Universe' type of contests were smeared upon. However, there was always a contest to choose the St Lucia of the year. This saint is celebrated on Dec 13th every year and events are held in church, on TV, in schools, companies and shopping centres. In school there was a lot of ill feelings among the girls who wanted to become St Lucia.
In Japan there is a 'need' for representatives to promote and upgrade the status and fame of prefectures and areas. Is there a 'princess' at your company? A Miss AC? Would you be a willing candidate?
Sounds like a good thing!
I'm glad they are going with the times! Around here, we have a position called the wine princess, they are elected in each region/town that has a lot of wineries to serve as a kind of ambassador for the vintage. Maybe those will become gender neutral sometime soon as well.
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