Familiar Faces, Familiar Voices…

One of the questions we get asked a lot by fellow Malaysians is what it’s like living in the Land of the Cantonese Movie/ TV Stars. This is mildly interesting to me, because I remember as a tween in Sandakan donkey’s years ago, when someone was going on a trip to HK, people asked the same question. S-o here’s the latest money shot:

Dis is art. The Rockstars even have appropriate star-struck expressions 😀

(I was halfway through the previous post, when we realized who was sitting behind us… Kings is wayyy more familiar than me, but I have to say some of their conversation before I finally turned to see who they were kind of gave me an idea too… Sonorous, Authoritative Actor Voice might have a little to do with it 🙂

We got a bit “suan”-ed by wait staff after that, something like Kings had called for the cheque and then right after that pic Rockstar needed to go to the bathroom so The Mens rushed off and after very quickly packing up, I made to leave and wait outside the meal area for The Mens and remarked in passing on the way out, “Settled the bill already right..” The reply I got was “Actually, NO. You were too busy taking pics.” And then while I was paying they repeated it along the lines of, “What to do, you are too busy taking pics…” (I got the impression it’s not about the bill it’s about the pics…)

There was just another couple little kids who ran up to the HK stars and asked nicely if they could take a pic, but otherwise in the crowded restaurant, everyone left them alone. Unless they actually knew them personally, maybe once or twice someone went to chit chat, but otherwise they were in the corner table I guess for a reason. 

The stars themselves were gracious, professional and warm. We were the ones who erm, might have committed mild faux pas. Anyway I didn’t initially think this was news but I had been chatting with one of my primary school mates and then remembered that as tweens, HK had been this Place Where The People In The TV Really Lived (think Brooke Shields Plays Crazed Fan Of Joey In Friends During His Run As Soap Star Dr Drake Ramoray – “But….. Drake…. How can you be…. right here… and in there?! <points to tv>”).

So, what I’d told my pri school friend was, the paparazzi in HK can be quite nasty. They really sell pictures and make all kinds of stuff up for gossip magazines. And that, more than anything, was probably why HK stars might be wary of people always trying to take pics. It’s not that they’re generally snobby, it’s that they’re generally wary, and with good reason.

Several years ago Rockstar had a classmate (pre-Kennedy) whose celebrity mum was being pursued by the paparazzi. This ended up extending to her daughter and husband. (And btw, they pursue “bad” angles to stories a lot more in general than “good” ones.) Rockstar’s then-classmate’s parents told us that despite offering to cooperate, various paparazzi (I forget if freelance, or attached to a particular publication) had said to them something like, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. If you don’t want us to be so aggressively in-your-face especially with your daughter around in case anyone gets accidentally jostled and what-not, then you make sure you let us get a good pic. Turn and face the camera.”

So, an added kudos to celebrities for being nice about it here in HK on their off day.