Vietnam’s representative at the 2016 Miss Earth beauty pageant had a forgettable night on the weekend after the translation of her Q&A topic did not go according to plan.

Vietnamese beauty queen Nguyen Thi Le Nam Em, 20, advanced to the top eight of the beauty pageant during the competition’s coronation night on Saturday in Manila.

The Mekong Delta girl entered the interview round alongside representatives from Venezuela, Sweden, Russia, the U.S., Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador, where the contestants were asked to draw a topic presented in the form of a hashtag (#) as their interview question.

Nam Em took the stage with confidence, smiling brightly as she handed over her topic paper to the host, which contained the hashtag ‘#Empowered to make a change.’ The host read aloud the topic to the audience.

The hashtag is also the official slogan of the 2016 Miss Earth.

However, as the crowd awaited Nam Em’s answer, the beauty turned towards her Vietnamese interpreter who was sitting in the audience and signaled with her eyes that she needed help translating the topic.

The interpreter, seemingly dumbfounded by the surprise request, could not respond at first and had to ask for the topic to be repeated twice before coming up with a faltering translation.

Though Nam Em managed to pull off her answer to the question in Vietnamese, she did not make it to the final four of the competition. The crown was later handed to Ecuadorian contestant Katherine Espin.

Nguyen Thi Le Nam Em’s Q&A session in the finale of the 2016 Miss Earth beauty pageant in Manila, the Philippines

In an interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper after the show’s conclusion, Nam Em said she was “sad and regretful” over the pageant’s outcome.

“The interpreter performed well in the mock session with the board of judges prior to the show, but he was nervous during the live performance so his translation of my answer was just plain wrong,” the Vietnamese beauty said.

When asked why she did not answer the question in English as the topic was not too complicated, Nam Em said she wanted to answer in Vietnamese so that the answer could be more in-depth and more people would hear the Vietnamese language.

“I could have answered in English, but I wanted my answer to be broader and more memorable to the audience, not just basic knowledge,” she claimed.

However, the Vietnamese public did not seem to buy her explanation, with many pointing out that it was due to the beauty’s incompetence in English that she needed help with the translation of the topic in the first place.

“Oh, please stop making excuses,” one Tuoi Tre reader commented. “Let’s face it. How can you communicate with international friends with [such] a lack of English proficiency?” another reader said.

While beauty pageants are criticized for their objectification of women and viewed more as an entertainment event, the Vietnamese media and public still hold them in high regard .

Vietnamese beauty queens are often praised for achieving highly in international beauty competitions and their performances are scrutinized by the local media, who view them as ambassadors, tasked with promoting their country’s image to international friends.

Nguyen Thi Le Nam Em in her evening gown during the 2016 Miss Earth coronation night. Photo: Miss Earth

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