Miss World China finals in Beijing, July 14, 2013

Occasionally in showbusiness or sports, the odds against a performer s success are so stacked that the audience chooses, out of the goodness of human compassion, to root against probability. It s why we pull for Celtic FC when they face Barcelona, or Susan Boyle. I hadn t planned to cheer for the pageant contestants of Miss World China on Sunday at Galaxy SOHO hadn t not planned to cheer, as planning these things one way or another would be odd but a realization dawned upon me sometime between the rain and the fake applause piped in through the sound system: these girls are all underdogs in their own spotlight. They deserve