In China, Even Sex Scandals Involve a Larger Population

Apparently, Canadian-born, Hong-Kong multi-untalented celebrity Edison Chen is not just your average douche with a fetish for hip-hop culture tritest clichés (“hate the game and dun hate the player“? Really? I mean, does anyone still speak like that in a non-ironic way in 2008?), he also liked to document his most intimate moments with various Asian celebrities in tasteful semi-pornographic snapshots involving part or whole of said celebrities’ nakedness, along with his own, for good measure.

 

I guess one should not be surprised that such a bright young lad did not think twice of handing over his fully loaded laptop to some random shop repair assistant somewhere. Whence its contents eventually made it to the internets at large, generating quite a turmoil. 

The story and its numerous plot twists (retired celebrities, Japanese actresses, Hong Kong triads, broken mariages, hell, even Jackie Chan got involved!) has already filled an entire subcontinent of Asian press articles, apparently leading to political repression unseen since the days of Tiananmen… 

As for Edison, things don’t look too good for him: sponsors couldn’t shed him fast enough, movie studios lost his phone number mid-shooting and he apparently managed to piss off a few bigwig entertainment industry moguls cum triad bosses (who didn’t appreciate the publication of his very personal and graphic way to ask their daughter in marriage). To top it all, I am afraid none of his former girlfriends is in any mood to console him at the moment. 

People, when will you learn? Keep your sex tapes on VHS and never trust the repairman.

Olympic Affair

The Beijing Games Takes another hit.

It was a moment to make angry wives applaud and two-timing husbands – and the Chinese government – squirm.

With eight months to go to the Beijing Olympics, Zhang Bin, one of the most famous faces on the nation’s television, was proudly relaunching its main sports network, CCTV-5, as the Olympics Channel.

As Zhang talked enthusiastically into the cameras before a studio audience, a small woman in a brown duffel coat clambered on stage, bore down on him and grabbed his microphone.

Onlookers immediately recognised Zhang’s wife, Hu Ziwei, herself a well-known sports anchor.

But what came next surprised everyone as Mrs Hu launched into a blistering attack on her husband for having an affair with another woman. Only two hours earlier, she said, she’d discovered his “improper relationship.”

And as Zhang stood open-mouthed, uncertain what to do, she bravely coupled his infidelity with her country’s poor human rights record.

“Today is a special day for the Olympics Channel, it’s a special day for Zhang Bin, and it’s a special day for me too,” she said.

Then quoting a French diplomat who has been critical of the Games she added that if China’s values don’t improve, the Games will have been for nothing.

Fighting off attempts to remove her, she said: “That French foreign diplomat also said that until Chinais able to start exporting its values, it won’t be able to become a great power.” “Yet Zhang Bin can’t even face up to his own hurt wife. I think China, to succeed as a great power…

“Don’t any of you have any conscience? Let go of me! We’re very far from being a great country.”

Even at this late stage, Zhang thought he might avoid public embarrassment because as usual in a nation always anxious to censor out any unwanted disclosures, the show was being pre-recorded.

His wife’s outburst could be edited out, he thought. But, as has happened in the past, the authorities underestimated the power of the Internet and the mischief of its enthusiastic devotees. Within hours a renegade tape of the three-minute confrontation was posted on the Chinese websites tudou.com and Sina.com.

As Chinese authorities scrambled to remove it from those, it was switched to YouTube and other international sites they could not control – and they reported that hundreds of thousands of people were watching it.

Chinese reaction to Mrs Hu’s outburst was divided.

The nation’s leaders, always eager to paint a picture of a perfect society, were said to be deeply embarrassed.

On the streets many people chuckled over the wandering husband’s humiliation. But others pointed out that Mrs Hu should not have been surprised because Zhang left his first wife for her.

Philipino Sex Dolls?

Protest sex dolls seized in Philippines – rights group

CUSTOMS officials in the Philippines have seized inflatable sex dolls meant to be used for an international campaign against animal cruelty, an animal rights group said. 

Say what? Are these sex dolls human or some sort of PETA animal. PETA’s getting more creative than I thought.