Interview: "I'll be role model I never had," says first Afro-Asian Miss Universe Japan beauty contest winner

"There was a lot of bullying when I was at school, particularly when I was an elementary school student. They used to throw garbage in my face but I had no idea why," 22-year-old Ariana Miyamoto, who has taken the world by storm since becoming the first Afro-Asian to be crowned Miss Universe Japan last month, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

While life growing up in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture was not all doom and gloom, with a young Miyamoto often outside with boys playing with airguns and giving the guys as good as she got on the volleyball court, it wasn't exactly all peaches and cream either, as she recalls.

"The bullying was an ongoing thing and it wasn't just by one individual, it was by groups too picking on me because I looked different from them with my darker skin. The level of attacks got quite serious, but perhaps the emotional pain was more agonizing," said the winner of the regional leg of the world's most famous beauty pageant.

"There was this one time when a whole class of kids refused to get in the swimming pool with me, because my skin was a different color," Miyamoto remembered, adding that in those days she had no one to turn to, to express her pain, her anxiety, her confusion about looking and feeling different, yet being Japanese.

Sipping on a mixed-berry shake and tucking into a slice of banana cinnamon chiffon cake on the terrace at a renowned restaurant in Tokyo's haughty Daikanyama neighborhood as the sun dances off her bare shoulders and further illuminates an already very bright, jocular smile, it would be easy to believe that this effervescent, chatty, confident and stunningly beautiful girl, has had life handed to her on a plate. But nothing could be further from the truth.

"It all got too much in those days and I'd been keeping all these mixed emotions inside and didn't want to talk to anyone about them as they were so personal and sensitive and as a child, confusion and embarrassment together is a fairly devastating cocktail of feelings," Miyamoto confessed.

She finally decided to open up to her mom as she had always known she was "different" and living in Nagasaki which plays host to U.S. military bases providing at least a superficial international environment couldn't answer the deep-rooted questions she needed answering; the burning desire to know who she was and her inalienable right to have an identity.

"My mom was really honest and really helped me to simplify the complex emotions and rising identity crisis that was beginning to stifle me at the time. She told me the kids that were bullying me were doing so because I was different and this threatened them, because they're used to everything being the same here."

Miyamoto added that her mom said that the other kids were jealous of her darker skin as it made her unique and an individual, and, unbeknown to her at the time, those words of motherly love would be a catalyst for change for a young girl who just more than a decade later would be dominating the front covers of a number of high profile fashion magazines, newspapers and TV shows as one of the most-recognizable new celebrities in Japan.

Divorce is rarely a blessing in disguise, but Miyamoto's parents splitting up after she attended elementary school, saw her emigrate to the United States when she was a teenager and live with her father in his hometown of Jacksonville, Arkansas, where she attended Jacksonville High School and also worked as a bartender.

She remembers that it was reconnecting with her father, an African American, that really helped her understand a part of her roots and heritage that had been impossible for her to explore in Japan.

"In the U.S. I learnt that everyone is different and being unique and an individual is something that's celebrated there, rather than people trying to be the same and just follow the crowd. It was probably the first time that I felt comfortable in my own skin and when I returned to Japan I felt a new sense of confidence. I felt 'fresh'," she said.

Miyamoto as young girl had actually dreamed of being a model when she was older, but perhaps having no role models in Japan to look up to and be inspired by who looked like her, being of Afro- Asian, mixed descent, she gave up on the idea and decide she wanted to be a pilot, but her childhood dream would come true thanks to a scout casting her for an artistic catalogue shoot in Nagasaki.

"I think it was at this time that I started to realize that what my mom told me all those years ago was true. I am unique. I am different. I am an individual and now rather than throwing garbage at me, people want to pay money to take my picture, so I guess I must be good-looking too," Miyamoto said playfully half- joking, between sips of berry shake and spoonfuls of cake, blissfully unaware that a sizable crowd of fans had steadily been growing behind her, snapping pics with their phones and talking excitedly.

"Getting scouted for more jobs and booking jobs through my modeling agency also boosted my confidence, but when the Miss Universe Japan 2014 organization invited me to enter the competition I flat-out declined, because in my mind Japan was still not ready for a mixed-race winner and I'd only enter the competition if I thought I had a chance of winning it," she explained.

But a sad turn of events would see Miyamoto change her mind on the competition and make her burden to succeed all the more heavy, yet ultimately rewarding.

"A year later a good friend of mine who was also mixed-race; half-white, half Japanese, committed suicide because although he was mixed, he couldn't speak any English at all and was really confused about his identity to the point that he could no longer go on living and saw suicide as the only way to escape the trauma. "

Miyamoto said that losing a good friend to an inner complex that she could so completely relate to was her motivation to join the competition in 2015 and she felt that by entering the competition she could somehow help lay some of her departed friend 's ghosts to rest and that she did, not just by winning the competition, but starting a national and international dialogue about race and racism in Japan and the false notions here that all Japanese people are fundamentally the same.

"After winning the competition I had to deal with what seemed like a whole nation of critics, many of whom were saying some really spiteful and hateful things about me, especially online," Miyamoto said.

"There were varying degrees of racist comments made about me, but the general theme seemed to be that because I'm not 'pure' Japanese looking, I shouldn't be representing Japan in a global beauty contest. A lot of conservative people here have this opinion and believe that someone with traditional looks should've won. And so I ask my critics, I was born and raised in Japan, I've spent my whole life here, I'm a Japanese passport holder, so who am I? Why should I not represent Japan?"

"Beyond blatant ignorance and racism, there's no logical answer they can give," the starlet said.

She went on to explain that she wants people in Japan to come to accept the fact that Japanese people nowadays come in all shapes and sizes and even different colors, yet they are still Japanese and this will become more pronounced in the future as more foreigners come to Japan in the future to work as the population here is shrinking while simultaneously rapidly aging.

"Now I have a global voice I really want to confront racism as an ambassador for Japan. There is racism in Japan, I continue to experience it firsthand on a daily basis, but I have a voice now. At the same time, racism is something that plagues the world and in the United States recently there has been a lot of social unrest due to issues of race," she said.

"I intend to be a role model for future generations of half- black, half-Japanese girls. I want to be the role model I never had growing up and pass on the same message that my mom gave me. Being different and unique can be the biggest life-changing blessings you could hope for. I'm proof of that. But one thing I don't have to prove is my nationality," said a beaming Miyamoto, clearly winding up to a wonderful crescendo.

"I've got a Japanese soul, heart and spirit and if that's not enough for my critics, I've got a valid Japanese passport too, as I hope to visit Africa in the near future," she said, her charming smile, quickly dissolving into an infectious laugh. Endi