HONG
KONG - First of all, how stupid was it for one of
this city's hottest young celebrities to take
hundreds of nude photographs, many of which appear
to show him engaging in sex with a stunning
variety of Hong Kong starlets? Then how could he
compound the error by allowing those photos to
wind up scoring a prodigious number of hits on the
Internet and to turn up in the print media as
well?
Those are the big, career-stopping
rhetorical questions for Edison Chen, the
27-year-old actor and singer at the center of Hong
Kong's juiciest-ever sex scandal. Apparently, Chen
saved the photographs on a computer that he sent
to a shop for repairs. Soon thereafter the world
was witness to the revolving door of Chen's
bedroom triumphs.
After weeks of
self-imposed exile (some might say hiding) in the
United States, the once
supremely confident playboy returned to this
celebrity-crazy city last Thursday as a miserable
penitent, admitting that he had taken most of the
offending photos and begging forgiveness for his
astonishingly doltish role in the affair.
If this were a city in the United States -
where several years ago a young celebrity by the
name of Paris Hilton used an initially
embarrassing sex video of her and a former
boyfriend to enhance her image as a fun-loving
party girl - Chen might find a way to boost his
career as a result of the scandal. But this is
paradoxical (and sometimes provincial) Hong Kong,
where fascination with sex and celebrity manages
to coexist quite comfortably with puritanical
prudishness. So, while many Hong Kong people are
properly appalled and revolted by Chen's photos,
that is only after they have had a good, long look
- and, in a lot of cases, multiple good, long
looks.
Therefore, it was necessary for the
Canadian-born Chen to prostrate himself before
this city's population of 7 million at the press
conference, attended by more than 200 members of
the local and overseas media, that he called last
week. Chen is perhaps best known for his superb
performance in the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal
Affairs, a highly successful crime thriller
directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak that was
remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed,
which won best picture, among other honors, at the
2007 Academy Awards. But he has starred in many
other popular films and also built a successful
recording career, in recent years branching out
from Canto- and Mando-pop into hip-hop.
But that career now lies in a shambles.
Not only did the pop icon apologize for his role
in the nude photos affair, but he also announced
that he would quit show business and devote his
life to charity in the next few months.
"I
would like to say sorry to all the people in Hong
Kong," Chen said. "I give my apologies sincerely
to you all, unreservedly and with my heart. I hope
you all will accept my apology. Give me a chance."
Chen was particularly contrite in
addressing his young fans, saying: "I know young
people in Hong Kong look up to many figures in our
society and, in this regard, I failed as a role
model." Chen added that he planned to bow out of
the Hong Kong entertainment industry
"indefinitely" to "heal myself and search my
soul".
Miserable is the only way to
describe the way the once-proud star appeared
during his seven-minute confession to the media.
But, if misery loves company, there is plenty of
it to go around in Hong Kong's celebrity world
these days. The reputations - and perhaps the
careers - of some of the city's brightest young
female stars have been jeopardized by Chen's
photographic indiscretions.
Those
compromised include Chen's current (but perhaps
soon-to-be former) girlfriend Vincy Yeung, the
niece of Emperor Entertainment Group chairman
Albert Yeung, as well as Gillian Chung of the
Canto-pop duo Twins, former actress, singer and
model Bobo Chan, model-actress Rachel Ngan and
singer-actresses Candice Chan and Cecilia Cheung.
Cheung happens to be the wife of another Hong Kong
pop star, Nicholas Tse.
Twins star Chung
is so far the only other celebrity involved in the
scandal to publicly apologize. Not that it did her
much good. With outraged moralists now calling for
a boycott of her performances, Chung canceled an
appearance over the weekend at a charity event
promoting Hong Kong as host of the Summer Olympic
Games equestrian competition this summer -
although her Twins partner, Charlene Choi, did
appear. According to her management group, Chung
missed the event because she was stricken by a
fever, but many suspect the real reason was the
rising temperature of criticism she has prompted
on the Internet.
Returning to the
stupidity theme, what were Chung and her fellow
nubile starlets thinking when these photographs
were snapped? Or were they thinking at all? Were
they even aware that their kinkiness with Chen was
being recorded and could wind up as cyber fodder
for a global community of vicious voyeurs? That
part of the story is still unknown, so the
revelations will no doubt continue. The sex- and
scandal-crazed Hong Kong media will see to that.
The story, now a month old, may have peaked with
Chen's mea culpa, but it promises to live on.
There is simply too much money to be made for it
to die.
It is not just those appearing in
the nude photos whose reputations have been
damaged, however. The Hong Kong police have added
another embarrassing dimension to the sordid saga.
In their zeal to stop the rapidly metastasizing
spread of the photos on the Internet and in the
press, they arrested nine people and charged
three. Police Commissioner Tang King-shing also
made the alarming announcement that simple
possession of any of the photos could constitute a
crime, an assertion that Assistant Commissioner
Vincent Wong seemed to contradict two days later,
when he said that sharing the photos with friends
would not be considered a violation of the law.
After the commissioner's remark drew a
barrage of invective on the Internet, Tang added
to the confusion by saying, "Everyone has his or
her own view. Some people think I was right while
some don't."
But, at least when it comes
to matters of law, shouldn't ordinary people feel
confident that their police commissioner knows
what he is talking about? That is no longer the
case in Hong Kong, whose police department, long
considered among the best in Asia, has taken a
blow along with the celebrities caught up in the
scandal.
It was clear that police acted
hastily when the first person arrested over the
photos - Chung Yik-tin, 29, who was charged with
publishing an obscene article - was released on
February 15 after two weeks behind bars. His
release came because the maddeningly fickle
Obscene Articles Tribunal ruled that the
photographs he had distributed on the Internet
were not obscene.
Given the graphic nature
of some of those photographs - for example, one
depicts Chung naked with her legs spread while in
bed with Chen - that ruling must have come as a
surprise not just to the police but also to most
of Hong Kong. After all, this is the same tribunal
that in 1995 classified as "indecent" a photo of
Michelangelo's statue of David because the
biblical king's genitals were shown. It also gave
the same classification to relatively tame photos
clandestinely taken of Chung changing clothes
backstage at a concert in Malaysia in 2006.
To the ordinary eye, the Chen photos were
in another league that could well be considered
obscene. Still, why didn't police seek a ruling
from the tribunal before making their arrests? In
light of the far more extreme smut that is easily
available in cyberspace and in print, there was a
public perception that police had acted
precipitously in this case because of the big
names and reputations involved. Instead of
quelling the scandal, then, the police response
only added fuel to the fire.
At this
point, the scandal has reached such epic
proportions that Hong Kong parents, not noted for
their sexual openness, have started talking about
it with their children. Meanwhile, educators are
considering using Chen's humiliation as an object
lesson in the classroom to promote sexual modesty
and responsibility. Conservative religious groups
see the affair as yet another sign that Hong Kong
has gone to hell in a handbasket.
Mostly
lost in all the sexual titillation, police
bungling and largely hypocritical moral posturing
is the fact that Chen's photos were quite likely
stolen and that the privacy of all those depicted
in them has been grossly violated. This,
apparently, is the price of celebrity (combined
with stupidity) in Hong Kong. With this scandal
now so thoroughly burned into the collective
conscience of the city, it should be a long time
before another Hong Kong star hands over a
computer for repairs.
Just buy a new one.
Kent Ewing is a teacher and
writer at Hong Kong International School. He can
be reached at kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
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