Twenty-four-year-old Charity Maru, also known as Charity Lu Lu Seng, won the Miss World Singapore title last week, placing her in the Miss World finals later this year in Sanya, China.
But there’s just one problem — she’s not originally from Singapore. Oh no! You know what comes next.
Maru is from Kachin State but was granted citizenship in 2007, according to Yahoo! News, which first reported this contentious story.
“I’m a minority here. I’m a Kachin, that means I came from the Kachin State from the northern part of Myanmar,” she said after getting the award on Oct 21. “But Singapore has given me this opportunity and trusted me with this responsibility so I’m very grateful for it. And I’m gonna try my best to win an award at the international Miss World pageant.”
The outrage arrived in a steam of comments on the Miss World Singapore Facebook page. Her statement about where she comes from were apparently an unforgivable affront to some Singaporeans.
Weirdly, others WANT to claim her as Singaporean and are worried Myanmar nationals might stake a claim (Maru just can’t win, unless it’s the Miss Singapore World contest, of course).
To all the haters, here’s some food for thought. Can’t she be proud of all her roots — her Kachin roots, her Myanmar roots, and her Singaporean roots? Also, note that it’s significant that she moved from Kachin — a war-torn state where around 100,000 people have been displaced — so don’t take away her ethnicity, especially after all the pain and suffering she most probably experienced first hand.
With text from Coconuts Yangon
Photo: Facebook
