Hacking the Good Days...
It’s been more than two weeks when close to a thousand of private/sex photos of various female popstars with Edison Chen are released and I have been trying to resist the urge to blog about it – until yesterday, bear with me for the summary of this story before I elaborate why.
International press started chiming into the ‘sex scandal incident’ in Hong Kong when the Hong Kong media has been getting absolutely frantic (see EWSN’s brilliant summary here) and the police started arresting and detaining suspects who might have ‘distributed’ indecent materials on the internet without trial,
The police have arrested nine people in connection with photographs and videos on the Internet in the last two weeks. Three suspects have been formally charged, including a 24-year-old man in Kowloon who was charged Tuesday with publishing obscene materials after he was said to have posted two files containing 100 photos.
What’s so indecent of these photos, you have to ask? Basically they are photos of female stars posing and revealing their private parts, as well as various photos of them performing oral sex on Edison Chen. These photos were taken but weren’t meant to be for ‘public consumption’, however when when Mr. Chen took his laptop for repairing, they got stolen and distributed. (that I have to say, it’s simply and utterly inconsiderate and stupid).
The police are looking to capture the ‘cultprit’ and also almost randomly tracking down people who distributed the photos. The reactions from the ‘moralists’, the ‘authority’ and the ‘public’ all reveal issues more than skin-deep in this psuedo ‘Westernised’ society that I have known of. The most apparent issue, is what John Kennedy coined at white terror,
Pornography is openly sold by many street newspaper vendors in Hong Kong and versions of the photographs have been seen on the covers of most Chinese-language dailies every day since the first batch of photos appeared online two weeks ago, despite that under the city’s Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance, distribution is prohibited.
The moralists are urging the film star to admit that they are ‘wrong’.
Now, let’s get two things clear. In many of Hong Kong daily newspapers, there is a PORNOGRAPHIC section where anyone, ANYONE, who can afford 30p can go and get a copy. Where as in this case, these young pop stars were meant to be taking *private* photos in their bedrooms. There is no coercion, no intimidation. What is wrong with that?
As early as the days where Eve Ensler produced the Vagina Monologue, a screenplay about how people were never able to respectfully speak aloud the word ‘vigina’ to where we stand – the conservatism and the hypocrisy is what getting to me. People went into details accusing one of the pop stars as hypocritical and should apologise in the public. Now why does , e.g. Gillian Chung, need to apology – what has she done wrong? EWSN translation of thosewerethedays blog illustrated part of the problem,
In the Hong Kong entertainment industry, some artistes have become upholders of morality. They criticize the media for being very yellow and very violent; they preach morality; they say that this or that magazine should not have published something or the other because corrupts young people; they describe themselves as clean, self-respecting and pure beyond belief.
Grow up, Hong Kong. We freaking need to revamp our sex education starting with a healthy attitude towards sex and relationships. We can never *change* the media – we *are* the media. We are the lowest in the media ecology foodchain and they produce these low-quality, high fuss stories because we are asking for it. I would applaud if the Hong Kong government steps up and announces that they will reform Hong Kong’s liberal and sex education, otherwise just joining the moral [panic] folks and picking up the pitchfork is totally, utterly immature and useless.
Updates: thanks Christian for pointing out that I miss-spelled vagina. Not sure if I was taught to spell that in Hong Kong anyway 
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It is a joke– as people didn’t learn from this incident. The starlets wont face it, Edison decided to run away, the people in HK keep saying it is immoral while hunting for the photo and the video.
‘We can never *change* the media – we *are* the media’. I like this argument. However, I somtimes feel that we all are victims of the media, not just the starlets…
littleoslo: yeah precisely – there are still photos out there enlarging bra-strips of female stars and claimed that they’re ‘indecent’ … imagine the first cultural shock I had in Italy when I saw beautiful women wearing semi-transparent dresses while remained ultra comfortable with their sexuality?
linjie: Hmm that’s a hard line to draw, really. What if we are just passive consumers of information, are we the victims or are we partially contributing to the culture? I guess the same argument is very applicable to capitalism/consumerism as well. That itself deserves a glass of wine, some nice cheese and a heated debate
Hi Cathy. The whole “sex scandal” thing is not a “sex scandal” but actually a “media scandal” in my opinion. The media should not be printing photos like this obtained in such a manner. The whole thing is stupid. However, Edison Chens English video was a joke too – not saying he should admit it, but denying it is wrong too. Anyway, it’s one of those stories that is hyped at the moment and everybody will forget soon enough.
Hi Ian – yeah it’s funny that my dad always tells me about the two main traits of Hong Kong people which are ‘very sensitive’ and ‘very forgetful’. I hate to agree with him but with incidents like this you just have to.
It reminds me tropical fish in a tank, a slightest movement will cause the whole group to swim swiftly in a complete opposite direction…
It sucks for those who spent Chinese New Year in Hong Kong though, apparently everyone was bombarded by the news and media coverage. So much about Chinese new year!
Hey Cat,
Thought you’d write about this and was interested in what you thought since you’re the Hong Kong girl and understand the culture. Still, I don’t think it’s just HK because I could totally imagine Koreans acting similarly if this happened (perhaps it has, don’t know enough about their media these days). It is strange how the men seem to divide women into two categories: Madonna and whore. (Madonna meaning the mother of Jesus in this case, not the pop star who is a whore.) They have no problem with naked women in pornography, if anything they enjoy it, BUT they refuse to believe other women, their mothers, sisters, female friends and starlets of their dreams, have any kind of sexuality. Which is why they’re blaming this Edison guy, who is a retard for having these pictures on a computer that went in for service, but it’s not like he tied them up, choked them and raped them. It was consentual.
This guy should move to the U.S. where sex tapes make you famous. It’s a whole other level of ridiculousness.
Miss our talks!
Jen
Sex tape, no matter where you go, does make you more ‘famous’ but yes – it could probably be as hyped up as it happens in any Asian countries where sex is still a taboo, but hey, at least Hong Kong was a colonised ‘Westernised’ city??