Child pageant veteran: 'It’s almost every little girl’s dream'
She was once a child pageant contestant with a talent in acrobatic hula-hoop.
Beating more than 150 little hopefuls, Miss Geraldine Ng was crowned overall winner of the Little Cinderella Singapore back in 2005.
She even represented Singapore in the Cinderella International pageant, held in Las Vegas.
Now 19, she says: “We were just innocent kids back then. Our parents signed us up for it and all that mattered to us was how fun it was to wear a crown and sashay in beautiful dresses.
“It’s almost every little girl’s dream.”
Doesn’t mean they are not focused on other priorities she says.
Miss Ng disagrees with the stereotype that child pageant contestants grow up to be “bimbotic” or “airheads”.
Miss Ng, who was reading International Business at Ngee Ann Polytechnic graduated with a GPA of 3.85.
She has since been offered a place to read Business in the National University of Singapore (NUS) .
Even though she has quit the pageant scene, that acrobatic hula-hoop talent remains.
It was part of her routine for the pageants.
When she was just seven, Miss Ng was trained in basic flexibility and strength by Miss Guo Wen Hua, 40, her coach who is a Chinese acrobat. A year later, she picked up acrobatic hula-hoop.
After school, she trained with Miss Guo thrice a week, with each session lasting two hours.
She also trained at home extensively whenever she had the time to.
She says: “I used to dislike training as it was painful to stretch further than my limits. I cried a lot.”
Miss Ng’s mother, Madam Linda Loo, 58, wanted her to take up acrobatics as it wasn’t a common talent since it requires a great deal of patience and discipline.
In 2010, Miss Ng went to Shenzhen, China to train with Miss Guo’s family and acrobatics troupe for a month.
She says: “It was a really cool experience as I trained and lived in a theme park.”
To maintain her flexibility and agility, Miss Ng joined Gymnastics, Chinese All grown up now, Miss Ng is still keeping up with her passion in acrobatic hula-hoop.
She performed for MAC Cosmetics’ and Rasa Sentosa’s Christmas event last year.
“The money I earned from performing is used to pay my school fees in polytechnic,” she says. She says she would encourage her own children to take part in child pageants.
“Child pageants can be a great platform to develop one’s self-confidence and showmanship, just like how it did for me,” she says.
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