Glutter’s Hong Kong
Riding With Hong Kong Street Racers
I am adding this because I mentioned this on the Riding with Hong Kong Street Racers, and it’s something I would like to mention.
A year ago, a very famous Hong Kong star’s nude photos were published in a trashy magazine. It was the darkest, most disgusting hour in Hong Kong publishing industry’s history. Because she didn’t pose nude, willingly, not even something she did when she was a young struggling actress. The photos originated from a time when she was kidnapped, raped and assaulted. She was forced to pose for those photos under threat.
The public knew of the kidnapping because a security guard saw a car crash into a lamp post, and a group of men got out from behind and pulled a screaming woman into their car and sped off.
He called the police and soon every one knew it was this star. A while later, she emerged, would not talk and every one knew it was a mafia (triad) hit. Rumors of what happened of course, was everywhere. People thought maybe she refused to make a film that the bosses wanted (hey, there is a reason why there are so many films in Hong Kong that glorify the triads, guess who invests?), or it was a pay back to her long term partner who is just one of the most well known stars in Hong Kong movies. We don’t know. But we know how it can be like here.
It’s all been forgotten except East Magazine, published these photos seven years later. The publisher is well known to be connected, but somehow he got them and put it on the cover.
It caused uproar within the industry. Stars came out of the wood works and organized a protest of the magazine. Press conference held. They even put out News Paper Ads, signed by a lot of people to complain about the treatment of this woman. It read “Tian Hai Butt Yong,” Which literally means, “Cannot be Tolerated by Heaven and All Below.” Just about the strongest words that can be used in Chinese to show distaste.
It’s as if this woman had to go through it twice. I couldn’t quite put my mind to how anyone thought this didn’t cross some line that should never be and blocked the idea, that is if I didn’t go one step further, to ask “How did you come up with that in the first place?”
The magazine sold out before it was recalled. It’s not really a surprise as people everywhere are sick that way.
The magazine shut down, although I felt sorry for a few people I knew who worked on it, because a job was a job, and they were doing the food or fashion section, not like they made any direct editorial decisions. But someone had to suffer some kind of financial lost over this.
But what disturbed me, and made me realized we had a long long way to go in this city with any sort of paradigm shift like the ones western countries had in the 60s, is people didn’t generally seem that horrified with it. As if it was okay to do that.
I heard women comment her figure wasn’t that great, they thought it would be better. Men saying, they wished those shots were done when she was younger. People commenting it was no big deal because the rumor was that this woman could be rented for a huge amount of money to spend a night with a rich man. It was a moment when certain people in my life had to be thrown right out of my mobile phone list. The things they were saying made my stomach turn.
Mainly a whole lot of people said, in a watered down concise fashion: “She asked for it. She’s a slut.” And there was pleasure to see someone so beautiful and successful racked over hot coals.
People who professed to be feminists, or liberals. People who I always thought was down, smart, educated, REALLY educated.
Not to say things don’t happen in the US that makes my stomach turn. Oh there are, except the people around me or close to me will be as angry, horrified or disturbed by it too. Here I was like a lone voice in the whole matter -just like the Hello Kitty Murder case (Should write about that too).
If I had to think of a moment I was literally ashamed to be part of this city, and how much I hated some of the cultural aspects of every day here. And was forced to admit the gulf of my world view opposed to where the people around me stood was this.
It took a while to realize my outrage was not mainstream. That for the most part there was a lack of sympathy, for a woman who not only was humiliated and violated in private but had to relive it in public seven years later. I seemed to be standing with her friends and business associates, even though I didn’t know her.
That this was entertaining, sure, about as much as a public hanging would be to me. Few things make me rage against my city like this. Generally I tend to cotton candy it with pink glasses because it’s still home. It’s only now I have this blog that I have started to explore the reasons I have felt so sad for the last few years.
The only thing that even touched upon class, grace, and redemption was the woman involved stood on a podium and said, through tears, “I didn’t know I was so strong. I can live through anything in life now. Even if those people wanted to humiliate me I am not going to let them. I am not going to hide. I am coming out to talk. The sky has eyes.”
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 