Highlights from HK Trip

I just got back from a trip to Hong Kong and wanted to do a quick recap of some of the highlights.  Now, I normally don’t like to share personal stuff on my blog, but since this trip ended up being a bit more entertainment industry related than expected, I figured writing about it would be a great way to capture the memories.

It has actually been 10 years since I last visited HK.  In addition to doing the standard visiting relatives and friends stuff that I normally do, I also ended up doing some ‘touristy’ stuff too (even though I’m not a tourist).  The 2 main ‘tourist attractions’ I went to while in HK were Avenue of the Stars at the Star Ferry Pier waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui (better known as the more hip-sounding ‘TST’ nowadays…lol) and Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum at the Peak located on HK island (haha…I’m sure none of you reading this are surprised given how much of an HK entertainment fanatic I am).   I actually make it a point to visit both places every time I go back to HK and this time around, I’m glad I did, as things have changed quite a bit from 10 years ago.

First, the Avenue of the Stars.  One reason why this is a ‘must-visit’ place for me each time is, of course, to go see my idol Jacky Cheung’s star and handprint (even though I’ve seen it many times already…lol).  Fortunately, there wasn’t much ‘wear and tear’ on the star and it still looks as good as it did 10 years ago – only thing is, it’s further than I remember it to be in terms of location, as I had to walk all the way around to almost the end of the pathway before I was able to find it.   No worries though, since I was planning on checking out each star anyway, so I didn’t mind the walk (plus I needed the exercise…haha).  The beginning part of the pathway consisted of the stars of film artists and directors/producers from the 1950s/60s/70s (i.e.:  Cho Tat Wah, Li Li Wah, Wu Fung, Chor Yuen, Josephine Hsiao, Lin Dai, Bao Fong, etc.) – in addition to the famous names, there were a few obscure ones in there too – regardless though, all were names that I recognized and definitely deserved to be there given their contributions to the HK film industry.  In addition to the stars that have been there for decades, there were also a few newly added ones near the end of the walkway, such as Nicholas Tse, Louis Koo, Carina Lau, Kara Hui, Kenneth Tsang, Simon Yam, etc. (I know none of those were there 10 years ago).  In terms of statues, the newest addition of course, is the Anita Mui commemorative statue that was added to the walkway a couple years back – I had read about the unveiling of the statue in the news, but wanted to check it out for myself.  It’s a nice statue with the words ‘Hong Kong’s daughter’ engraved at the base, though features-wise, it didn’t look like Anita at all – nonetheless, it’s a nice gesture that I’m sure all of us who loved Anita appreciate.   

The popular Bruce Lee statue was still there as well, though good luck trying to get close to it, as there are crowds of people around that statue all the time (I gave up trying to take pictures of the statue – I even had to fight to take pictures of Eric Tsang’s star, which was located right by the statue, so there were constantly people blocking it).  The second most popular ‘attraction’ there was Jackie Chan’s star and handprint (I could tell by the amount of ‘wear and tear’ on his star as well as the hordes of non-Cantonese speaking people clamoring to put their hands in the handprint and take pictures).  Of course, I’m not surprised at what I saw, since Avenue of the Stars is a major tourist attraction after all and is mostly frequented by tourists outside of HK who may be most familiar with international stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.  It’s rare for a non-local Hong Konger like me to visit and actually be interested in seeing the stars of other celebrities aside from these 2 (as a sidenote – it was kind of funny, but I think I was one of the few people there who actually recognized all of the celebrities’ names).

The other tourist attraction I went to was the wax museum.  I went on a weekday hoping to beat the crowds, but then I remembered that this was another place where very few locals go anyway, so it actually didn’t make a difference the time of day, there were still tons of tourists there (while I was there, I noticed groups of tourists coming in by the busload…it was amusing but annoying at the same time).   I must say that the wax museum changed a lot since I was last there 10 years ago – they renovated it a bit and added a few new areas that weren’t there before as well as many new wax statues that weren’t there previously.  I vividly remember on my last visit, I had ‘complained’ to my mom how ridiculous it was that HK’s wax museum had so few HK celebrities in it (at that time – I’m talking 10 years ago here -- there were only a few wax figures of local celebrities – all the rest were Hollywood stars, political figures, the Royal family, and sports personalities).  Well, someone must have heard my complaint (lol) because this time around, there were a lot more local celebrities in the museum as well as ones from Taiwan (i.e. Jay Chou, Ethan Ruan, etc) and also Mainland China (pianist Lang Lang, Huang Xiao Ming, etc.).  Oh and for fans of Korean entertainment out there, they actually added an entire section dedicated to Korean celebrities and singers (I think it’s called the K-wave section or something like that).

I like how the museum is a lot more organized now than it was in the past.  There are new placards next to each wax figure introducing each celebrity (in Chinese and English), more ‘special features’ on some of the figures (i.e. Andy Lau’s beating heart, Miriam Yeung’s laugh, Sandra Ng in her “Sparkle Club” setting with a couch where you can sit and pretend to be interviewed by her, etc.), and also the wax figures are separated into featured areas that actually make sense (i.e. most of the singers are in their own section, the local HK film and television stars are in their own sections, etc.).  Another new section added was a ‘making of’ section where they actually walk you through step by step how they create each of the wax figures, from the initial selection and measurement process to the final result – Donnie Yen’s wax figure (another new one that was added the past few years) was used as an example and there are actually video clips of him talking about the process on various monitors.   Another thing I noticed is that they gave the museum more of a “something for everyone” feel in that they added a Superhero section (with statues of Marvel comic book figures such as Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, Ironman, Wolverine, etc.) as well as a ‘Kids’ section with Hello Kitty, Doreamon, Mak Dou Dou pig, etc.  Another new section that I believe is only temporary is an area dedicated to the Journey to the West movie from 2013 (the one with Donnie Yen as the Monkey King and Aaron Kwok as the Bull Demon) – not sure why they decided to feature this movie in particular, maybe because of the costumes?  The figures themselves didn’t look like the artists much but the elaborate costumes were very definitely very similar to the real thing!

Overall, my visit to the museum was quite worthwhile (despite the crowds of rude tourists I encountered – but then again, most of the people in HK were rude…not sure if they’ve become jaded or dissatisfied with life or what….this is the first time in my many visits to HK where I was actually treated so rudely by my own people…I miss how nice people were 10 years ago…..).  Anyway, rude people aside, I definitely recommend that anyone who gets the chance to visit HK go see the wax museum and Avenue of the Stars at least once, especially those who are very ‘into’ all aspects of the HK entertainment industry.  Of course, if you get the chance to meet a celebrity in person, that’s a different story, but for those of us who are usually not that lucky, well, I’m happy with just looking at wax figures and handprints (and thereby taking that nostalgic trip down memory lane for a brief instant).

Speaking of celebrity sightings….I was lucky enough to ‘bump into’ a celebrity on this trip without even trying.  (As a sidenote….for those of you who are serious about ‘chasing’ celebrities, the best place to go is definitely Hong Kong International Airport in Chek Lap Kok.)   Actually, on my visit to HK 10 years ago, I had actually bumped into a few celebrities at the airport too, but they were lesser known artists, plus it was just a glance from far away, so probably not much worth mentioning.  This time around though, I bumped into not 1, but 3 artists in close proximity while at the airport – I  saw Calvin Choi, Remus Choi, and Edmond So from the famous HK singing group Grasshopper!  Here’s how it went down:  my mom and I were standing in line in the departure area waiting to go through security….since the line was long and we had nothing else to do, I started glancing around and suddenly, about 20 people in front of us, I spotted a familiar-looking guy with long hair putting his stuff on the conveyor belt for x-ray – I looked closer and sure enough, I was right – it was Calvin Choi from Grasshopper.  A few people behind him was Edmond So, still standing in line, playing with his Ipad (I assume it was an ipad – could’ve been a tablet too).  There were a few people with them, whom I’m assuming were their assistants.  They went through security and went into the gate area, all relatively low-key (not sure if anyone else recognized them…didn’t sound like it though).  I pointed it out to my mom and we were both wondering where Remus was, as we were assuming that they were going out of town to perform, so all 3 of them should’ve been there.  We didn’t see him though so we thought perhaps he went in already…then, when the security people opened up another line, we got into that line and as I was putting my stuff on the conveyor belt, I noticed another familiar face in line right behind me – yup, Remus Choi (looks like he might have gotten there a little late?).  I didn’t say anything or linger around after my stuff went through, as he was probably in a rush to catch his flight just like everyone else there, so didn’t want to bother him.               

So there you have it….a few highlights from my trip to HK.  I had fun overall and definitely looking to go back again in the near future.  I included a few pictures below, mainly from Avenue of the Stars, since those pictures turned out better.  Enjoy!

Entrance to Avenue of the Stars

Anita Mui commemorative statue

Jacky's star at Avenue of the Stars :-)

My 'TVB Rant' #9: Can TVB Get Any More Obvious with Its Favoritism?

At first, I didn't want to write this post because I didn't want to give the particular artist mentioned in this post any more 'publicity' than he already has, but once again, TVB pissed me off big time and I needed to vent about it to get it out of my system. So here it goes....

I just finished watching the finale episode of the variety series "All Star Glam Exam (華麗明星賽)" hosted by HK veteran Cantopop band/group Grasshopper. Up until yesterday, I was fine with the show, as I feel that throughout the season, there were definitely funny moments and the show wasn't really 'raunchy' like alot of the other variety shows out there recently (except for a few episodes that sort of pushed the envelope) -- it's actually one of the few variety shows that I've been able to tolerate in the past few years (needless to say, the quality of TVB's variety shows, just like their series, have gone done the toilet!!). Plus I like the hosts, as I grew up listening to the music of Grasshopper, and they are one of my favorite HK Cantopop bands / groups (not that there are that many to begin with anyway).

However, after watching the two-part finale episode, my opinion has somewhat changed.

Just to quickly "set the scene" for those who did not watch the finale yet: since it was to be the last show of the season (and possibly the show itself, since Grasshopper will be going on a World Tour concert in the coming year, so won't be able to host the show anymore, at least for now), TVB had a "special edition" of the show in which 10 guests were invited on the show to compete in various categories for prizes and money (as opposed to the usual 4 to 6 guests). Most of the guests who were invited for the finale had already gone on the show before and only a few of them were truly 'brand new' to the show. The guests who are invited are usually 'friends' of each of the 3 Grasshopper, as the 3 of them are sort of ‘competing’ as well (if their guests win, they win) -- the 10 guests were paired up into teams of 2 to compete against each other. The teams consisted of: Sammy Leung and King Kong, Nat Chan and Mandy Lieu, Louis Yuen and Nancy Sit, Raymond Lam and Wong Cho Lam, Johnson Lee and Bosco Wong. In general, each guest participates in 5-6 rounds of games and the highest cumulative score wins -- with the finale, the scores of the 2 guests in each team are combined together to form the cumulative total.

There were quite a few things in the finale to "complain" about but for the purpose of this post, I am going to focus on one thing in particular -- TVB's obvious favoritism of their 'favorite son' Raymond Lam. From the time the show first started about a year ago, I just knew that Raymond was going to appear on 1 of the episodes -- just didn't know which one (of course TVB wouldn't give up on the opportunity to promote their favorite son even more!)...turns out his one and only appearance was on the finale episode in which he paired up with Wong Cho Lam to compete in the games (I have a feeling it was deliberately planned this way by TVB for reasons that I won't get into here).

From the very first ‘game’ that the guests played, the favoritism of Raymond Lam was already very obvious. In the first game segment called “King of Posing”, each of the guests are given a series of camera numbers (camera 1, camera 2, etc.) to memorize – then, as the theme music to the show (sung by Grasshoppers) starts up, they do a ‘catwalk’ along the stage (in whatever manner they like) and pose for the cameras during the appropriate pauses in the music – the object of the game is to face the correct camera when posing (according to the sequence of numbers the guests were given earlier) and to get as many right as possible (8 angles total). Of course, each guest had their own way of doing the ‘catwalk’ – some were funny, some were silly, some were serious, etc. But when it came time for Raymond’s turn, things were completely different. First, instead of using the standard Glam Exam theme music for the game as everyone else did, he was the ONLY one of the 10 guests who was allowed to use his own song for the game – obvious and convenient ‘plug’ on the part of TVB, no? (And no, I don’t buy into the “well, Raymond is a singer but the others are not” crap because both Bosco and Cho Lam are officially singers as well). Second, instead of stopping to pose for the cameras at the appropriate times, all Raymond did was pretty much dance around the stage in beat with his song, completely ignoring the object of the game (needless to say, he scored a big fat ‘zero’ on that game!). So my question is – why is it that Raymond Lam gets the ‘special privilege’ of plugging his song as well as his dance during this segment instead of actually ‘playing the game’ properly like everyone else? There were many singers who appeared on the show previously and none of them got the same ‘privilege’ of plugging their songs and completely ignoring the objective of the game, so why does he get to?

The other segment where there was obvious favoritism was during the “Great Grasshopper Meal’ game where the guests are all seated around the table and while given special dishes to eat, they are asked a series of questions. Each time they answer a question wrong, they are “punished” in some form -- i.e. their utensils are taken away and they must eat with ‘specially-made’ utensils (usually something silly like long chopsticks, heavy paperweight utensils, celery sticks, other food, etc.), or they have to wear some type of silly accessory (anything from silly hats to jewelry to glasses, etc.), or they have to sit on something through the rest of the meal (i.e. a balloon, a cone chair, etc.)….there were other ‘punishments’ as well, but those were the main ones. After one of the Grasshopper hosts reads the question from a card, they are supposed to pick one of the guests (or in this case, the team of guests) to answer the questions (which range from the obvious ‘giveaway’ type questions to the extremely difficult / trick-type questions).

Well, during this segment, Raymond (and his partner Wong Cho Lam) had the ‘privilege’ of only answering 2 questions (yes, I counted and it was only 2) and was only ‘punished’ once (since the other question they answered was super-easy), whereas everyone else was being asked difficult questions and were being ‘punished’ left and right. The other thing too is that technically, Raymond himself didn’t even answer any questions – he just sat there and ate while Cho Lam was asked the questions (the hosts even called on Cho Lam specifically) and gave the answers. For those who get a chance to watch this segment, you will definitely notice the ‘favoritism’, as after the host asked each question, they would call out each group EXCEPT Raymond’s, even if they were ‘next in line (Raymond and Cho Lam sat between the Nat/Mandy group and the Sammy / King Kong group). Several times, the hosts went around the table -- sometimes even in order, going from Nat’s group then to Sammy’s group (skipping Raymond’s group) then around the table again, once again skipping the Raymond / Cho Lam group once it got to their side of the table. Even my mom, who was watching the show with me (and she is certainly an ‘impartial’ audience, as she pretty much watches everything without bias towards or against any artist or any show), commented several times while watching the segment: “Hey, did they just skip over Raymond and Cho Lam again?” I think even the guests themselves were starting to notice it, as some of them had surprised looks on their faces when they kept getting called on (someone even said “me again?”) – it wasn’t until close to the end of the segment that Raymond’s group got called on (to put things in perspective, the guests were served 3 dishes during the segment and they went several rounds for each dish – Raymond/Cho Lam didn’t get ‘picked’ to answer any questions until the very last dish was served….). So again, why did Raymond / his team get the ‘special privilege’ of not being called on for most of the game? Is it because they knew he wouldn’t be able to answer the question(s) correctly and didn’t want him to make a fool of himself with the silly ‘punishments’? Or was it some other reason? I could go on and on with all sorts of ‘speculation’ as to why this happened (but again, I will refrain from doing so).

Oh, and to ‘add salt to the wound’ so to speak, of course all the entertainment news reports that came out after the filming of that particular episode were pretty much ‘all about Raymond’ (oooh, he finally appeared on the show; oooh, he was ‘chok’-ing all night, oooh, he looks so handsome up there, blahblahblah….) – in the scheme of things, the other guests didn’t get talked about as much (though it seems that no one complained, so I guess they don’t really care…or maybe they are already used to TVB’s ‘tactics’ and so just turned a blind eye to it?).

I honestly don’t know what TVB’s intention was behind the ‘favoritism’, but I do know that it’s unfair to the rest of the guests who actually took the games seriously and were ‘good sports’ with their participation (again, this is just my personal opinion – the guests probably didn’t even care).

Lastly, I know that some may argue that the hosts were the ones at fault for the favoritism in a sense because they were the ones who told Raymond to show his ‘chok’ look during the Pose segment and they were the ones who ‘skipped’ over Raymond’s team during the Meal segment. In response to that, all I am going to say is that no matter what type of ‘atmosphere’ the hosts create, at the end of the day, all of these shows are ‘scripted’ to some extent and with the show being “TVB-produced”, the company definitely has a say in things. So no, TVB can’t claim ignorance in this case! End of story!