We read the tabloids so you don't have to
The story so far: singer Edison Chen Koon-hei, he of average talents but remarkable cheekbones, is doing a press promotion in Victoria Park when a scruffy member of Joe Public pushes through the media scrum, leans over the barricade and - so says Apple Daily - inquired of the rising actor/singer: 'Who the **** do you think you are? Who is this ******* star? What the **** are you people looking at him for?' Reading through the news this week, it's hard not to admit these are good questions.
ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS
As Hong Kong falls deeper into recession and Sars has employers cutting, slicing and laying off staff, our media is becoming schizophrenic. The news sections are a litany of misery, murder, unemployment, disease and bodies for sale. Yet the celebrity sections read like a parallel world.
Talk about one country, two systems. The big Canto-pop stories - and we won't dwell on these - read like advertorials because they are like advertorials: 'Eason Chan [Yick-shun] invites nine on a junk and parties all night,' runs Oriental Sunday's cover. 'Red wine and wakeboards are the way to go this summer,' the story continues. Grainy paparazzi pictures have been turned into diagrams telling us how much Eason, fiancee Hillary Tsui Ho-ying and friend Josie Ho Chiu-yi paid for their wakeboards, flippers and shorts. Other magazines tells us Leon Lai Ming likes water-skiing, Ekin Cheng Yee-kin likes diving and Juno Mak (the singer-son of a tycoon) can't live without his powerboats.
Three Weekly has a cover story on the history of birthday girl Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi's 'amazing body'. Next to a burning page icon (which denotes a red-hot story) the magazine tells us the 23-year old's breasts have grown (yet again) and that the skinny star may have the beginnings of a belly. (Adverts in the back will help get rid of that.) Express Weekly doesn't even bother to pretend its news is really a plug for potential advertisers.
