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VOL.2 May 2010
Mariatu Kargbo
In 2009, 25-year-old Sierra Leonean model, singer and philanthropist Mariatu Kargbo was named Miss Sierra Leone, Miss World Talent and Best World Dress Designer. She was the first foreigner to perform bian lian, traditional mask-changing, on the Miss World stage, and joined the first group of volunteers to help Wenchuan earthquake victims. Now living in Beijing, Kargbo spoke with ChinAfrica about her bond with China and her dream to help the world's poor.

 

Mariatu Kargbo (COURTESY OF MARIATU KARGBO)

 

How did you get your start as a singer and as a model?

I started [at] school, and the school sent me to the national group Sierra Black Fire. In this group I went around different countries to perform, model, sing and dance. That's how I started singing and modeling.

 

In 2007, after three years in China, you were the big winner on CCTV's Super Star program. You shouted on stage, "I love China, [and] I'd love to be a Chinese black girl," at a performance in Qinhuangdao. Can you explain why you'd like to be Chinese?

I was born in Sierra Leone, but my heart is the same [as] the Chinese: kind and warm-hearted. It is like yuan fen, or affinity, and that's why I [feel] Chinese.  

 

On the second day of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, you rushed to be included in the first group of volunteers. What was going through your mind when you decided to go?

When the earthquake happened, I was in a plane. After [we] landed, everybody was talking about the earthquake. I ran home, put on the TV, and saw people dying. I was crying. My friends were preparing my birthday party for the next day, but I told them I had to go to Sichuan. I took the flight the next day. Once there, I [worked] in the local hospital doing a lot of things. Because some people [had] lost their family and houses, they were giving up [on] their lives. I talked to them and sang to them, trying to retrieve their [spirits] again.

 

Why did you enter the 2009 Miss World contest?

I feel I am half Sierra Leonean and half Chinese. China has done a lot for Africa and for the world. I wanted to show China was a mama home, a mother land.

 

At the contest, your bian lian performance majorly impressed the judges. (Bian lian performers change masks back and forth in the blink of an eye.) The secrets of this art have been passed down from one generation to the next, but foreigners and women are traditionally forbidden from learning bian lian. How were you able to learn it?

Because I went to Sichuan and saved a lot of lives in the earthquake, [my bian lian teachers said] they taught me because I love China and would bring Chinese culture further on the Miss World [stage]. It took me two months to learn. For most people, this [was a] first, [watching] a foreigner do this performance, so they were shocked. The judges asked me to perform in the closing ceremony. [It was] my way to say thank you to China.

 

You're currently shooting a movie about the earthquake. How is that going? Any other future plans you care to share?

My part in the film is about a foreign student who rescues school children. We are shooting it in Sichuan, but have not finished yet; I have to go back to finish some parts. [Future-wise], I want to bring African and Chinese culture together to go around the world to do some program for the poor.

 

Sierra Leone is not well known in China. How do you see your Miss World victory and activities here changing that?

Since I took part in CCTV's Super Star program in 2007, Chinese people [have] started to remember Sierra Leone. [And] in 59 years, it is the first time a [Sierra Leonean has] won two awards in Miss World (Miss World Talent and Best World Dress Designer).

 

You went through a lot of hardship as a child in Sierra Leone. What is that pushes you forward? Any parting advice for other African women back home?

God gave me the talent to sing, perform, model and act. I want to use my talent to help. Every month I try to send some money back home, because I remember the days when I was poor.

Hold fast to your dreams. Bring your heart and try to bring the next person's heart together, and in that way you can help the world, you can help [that] baby suffering. China is a mother land. I hope one day, all over Africa, they can feel the love that I feel in China.

 

Watch Maria's performances at www.xingguangmaliya.cn

 

 

 

 

 

 

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