Lang Mo Book Comes Home

Btw I don’t think it shows up in the pic, but the header on the book I bought was titled “The Cexy Grandmaster.” Yes Cexy with a C. M-aybe it’s another witticism translated from Chinese that I didn’t g – Oh, why bother? By all means enjoy yourselves.

So Lang Mo Book comes home with me after the HK Book Fair (and btw friends then tell me Lang Mo presence used to be criticized heavily at the book fair), to the following responses:

From Rockstar: A disinterested “What’s that….. Oh! Bob the Builder! <goes off with his own books>”

From my 65 year old mum who flicks thru the whole thing: “There’s only one girl. Isn’t it boring?”

From Kings: A disinterested “What’s that….. ” (Sound familiar? :D)

The Hot Husband proceeds to listen dispassionately as I go on excitedly about Lang Mos giving out ices and culminate my mildly breathless narration with – Ta-daaa… Lang Mo poster! We can give this to one of his single friends! “Nah…..”

What? “None of our friends are kids anymore.”

Excuse me? “Who puts these things in their rooms nowadays…”

It doesn’t make a good gag gift? “No, not funny…” (Did the King pick that up from the Rockstar, or did Rockstar pick up ‘not funny’ from Kings?)

Humph. Well I’m gonna have a little fun with Lang Mo Book.

ONE WHOLE PAGE for a telephone pole? It’s not like she climbs up to fix the line and provides instructions and… WHY is there a telephone pole??

Unsuspecting Lang Mo?

Did anyone tell this poor guy he is in a Lang Mo book? Is he a closet Lang Mo?

What is this, for my parents’ holiday home neighbors from the States to carry on about how President Obama isn’t “American enough” because he doesn’t do enough photo ops in front of the American flag? “You see you see even HK Lang Mo takes pictures with the flag…” (Why would I make that up… They probably just watch Fox… Fine, I made that last up…)

Never even tell us where to buy the clothes. Her female audience has totally not been catered to. And then they wonder why women in particular don’t like it? I am a woman. I am very dissatisfied.

Verdict: HKD 148 for a Lang Mo book may not be a high price to pay for free speech….. But it may be a high price to pay for a Lang Mo book.

I can understand why Hong Kong people would get hot and bothered (sorry, this is an attempt at sarcasm please) over this, someone even told me in earlier years HK Book Fairs ended up being all about the Lang Mos. It can give quite a misleading impression of the city, because whereas political satire and witticisms and original thought lose something in Canto-English translation, Lang Mo Book is in a universal language. And not one that gets a lot of respect. (Not to be confused however with professions requiring some beauty (without the seediness) though.)

Kings is partly responsible for changing how I looked at professions that rely on beauty though. Technically it’s not the pretty model’s job to be a rocket scientist. Eye-ing a picture of a hunky male model once, he patted his pot belly and said “Well it’s his job to look like that. Too bad it’s not mine..” My husband is, I would say (especially because he never does), quite good at his job. But it is not modelling <cough>.

And it’s not like “bimbos” go around saying smart girls look like dogs, is it? Not… that I would know if they did, none of my girlfriends are dumbb. (Anyway if you thought “bimbo” was necessarily derogatory, check out Xiaxue’s reaction to the label – along the lines of I’m-100%-sure I’m-smart-but-I’m-not-100%-sure-I’m-attractive-so-thank-you <Respect>.)

Hang on. How come when observing a pretty girl “But she is not smart” seems to be a lot more common than “But she is not a nice person”?

Smart and pretty seem to be accolades that carry a lot more weight with society. Like a certain school I heard first-hand of, where the teaching assistants were apparently taking pictures on their cellphone with this one little girl in the school because she was just really, really pretty. I don’t know where the line is drawn exactly, we’ve been stopped by Caucasian tourists in HK before, asking if they can take a picture of Rockstar when he’s in a cute t-shirt. Once, to the backdrop of Lake Wanaka, someone asked for permission to film him as he stamped in the slushy, muddy puddles (What? He likes puddles, we were about to leave, he gets puddle fixes “at appropriate times” a.k.a. right before we go back and wash him.)

It’s not something I ever had to think much about because Rockstar goes out of his way to ruin pics and videos taken of him by strangers anyways (and quite a few taken by his parents.)

Besides, pretty girls, isn’t it quite the kick to be the best person you can be (“she’s really pretty”/ “she’s really smart”/ “wow she’s both”) and not give some people the satisfaction of adding “too bad she’s a bitch.” (Btw my default reaction to the worst pretty little bullies on the playground is “Doing that makes you not pretty.”)

So who cares if Lang Mos are smart or not. But I sure hope some of em are nice. Especially since there’s probably gonna be some little girls out there who wanna be like them.

How I see it is, you’ve been blessed, be it looks, smarts, personality… So you should be honoring Him who blessed you.

ps: OK truth time – I was being funny, but I gotta admit some of the Lang Mo pics in the book were quite seedy, though none were actually nude. I mean, honestly, if I had a daughter and she was 12 and wanted a boob job like this girl I would not allow it. (What, this girl is 12 right? Not 12 with boob job meh? Sorry my mistake :D)

So I disapprove. I am College First, Boob Job Later Parent <self-righteous sniff>. (What, what?? You gonna lock up your little girl when she’s 30 and wants a boob job? But you raised her not to feel like she needed one frivolously right?)