Sex scandal blocks Hong Kong's
airwaves By Augustine Tan
HONG KONG - These days in nightclubs, bars
and social gatherings across Hong Kong, men are
suddenly dropping to a squatting position behind
women, gripping the edge of their skirts and
taking a quick peep around. Not a word is said.
But "doing a Chu Pui-hing" brings the house down.
It has been like this for a week, without
let-up, even after Chu Pui-hing, director of
broadcasting for the government-funded Radio
Television Hong Kong network (RTHK), asked for
early retirement, 10 months ahead of schedule, for
his self-described
"outrageous" (and
intoxicated) behavior when he was caught by
paparazzi walking hand-in-hand with a prostitute
outside the Must Kara karaoke "hostess bar" near
the red-light zone of the Wan Chai district, an
area made famous by the novel and 1961 movie
The World of Suzie Wong. But the government
is likely to conduct an investigation into the
scandal before considering his early retirement.
The scandal is being fanned by the Sichuan
hooker, who goes by the professional name of Coco,
through interviews with one gossip magazine after
another. Pro-Beijing rags are largely leading the
way. Hong Kong's sleazy magazines usually pay for
such interviews, so Coco may be making up for
enforced absence from the Must Kara karaoke where
she dances on table-tops in addition to singing
and playing bar games with clients.
Like
all sex scandals, this one will die down. And Chu,
who rose through the broadcasting ranks after
starting as a talk-show host, is destined for the
shadows. There will be no regrets; even those who
have stood beside him are distancing themselves
from a man who publicly described his reaction to
the paparazzi ambush as "outrageous". In a largely
Cantonese interview with the anti-Beijing Apple
Daily newspaper after the rush of embarrassing
publicity, Chu was not without candor and a sense
of humor when he added in English: "The only
comment I would make is that alcohol is not
conducive to good behavior. So my advice is, drink
less."
The vital question is how much
damage Chu has done to a campaign to turn
government-run RTHK into a full-fledged
public-service broadcaster. The campaign has been
going on for more than a decade and is now only
months away from final resolution. RTHK is unique
in that enjoys a fairly high degree of editorial
freedom and is operated as an independent
department in the government under the
Broadcasting Authority. RTHK operates seven radio
channels, and produces television programs.
As RTHK's director, Chu is necessarily a
civil servant. But he has publicly stood up for
its conversion into a public corporation, similar
to the British Broadcasting Corp. He is the
strongest, if not the only, voice inside the
administration of Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald
Tsang who favors the conversion.
The issue
is highly political, hence some pro-democracy
activists have been quick to see Beijing's hand in
Chu's fall from grace. But others have pooh-poohed
the suggestion because this would mean Beijing
involved a lot of other unlikely people.
The paparazzi had originally gathered to
wait for Hong Kong singer-actor Kenny B and his
posse, who were whooping it up next door. In fact
the photographers had initially decided to ignore
Chu, but in that split second of decision-making
the director of broadcasting dived down behind the
hooker's bottom to give Hong Kong one of its most
hilarious news photos ever.
Beijing is
known to be strongly opposed to turning RTHK into
a public broadcaster. And the pro-Beijing camp has
been extremely vocal in condemning RTHK for openly
criticizing the administration. Complaints from
the pro-Beijing camp were numerous in 1999 after a
show discussing the separation of China and
Taiwan. Later that year, the head of RTHK radio
broadcasting, Cheung Man-yee, found herself exiled
to Japan as a trade officer and Chu taking over.
The complaints, however, continued, as had
the agitation for conversion of RTHK into a public
corporation.
In January 2006, Tsang set up
a committee to look into the issue. This had been
preceded by rumors that Beijing had told Tsang to
resolve the issue once and for all. That March,
the committee turned in a report that proposed
setting up an entirely new public-service
broadcaster, run by a board almost entirely
appointed by the Hong Kong government. The
committee did not dwell on the future of RTHK
other than to say that its role would be reduced.
The Hong Kong government is expected to
issue a paper for public consultation in the
coming weeks. The consultation process is expected
to close at the end of the year and the government
to make a final decision some time in the first
half of next year.
Meanwhile, pro- and
anti-government forces have been squaring up a
major battle. A Save RTHK Campaign has been
launched by 16 organizations to try to stop the
government closing down RTHK and replacing it with
a new public-service broadcaster. The campaign has
the support of the International Federation of
Journalists as well as the New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists.
RTHK has
been publicly reprimanded for producing and
showing a documentary about homosexual lovers,
improper accounting, and failure to comply with
regulations in management, entertainment expenses,
overtime payments, outsourcing services and
accepting sponsorships. Accusations of corruption
have also been leveled by investigators, though no
charges have yet been laid. All these are seen by
Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates as government
pressure to bring RTHK management into line before
a final decision is made.
The
pro-government media have also been making the
case that RTHK employees want to continue to enjoy
their full civil-service benefits while demanding
complete freedom from civil-service strictures in
terms of responsibility and freedom to criticize
government policies.
This
having-the-cake-and-eating-it message has gone
down well with the general public; various opinion
polls have shown little support for the campaign
to turn RTHK into a public-service broadcaster.
The Hong Kong government also appears to
be playing on public concerns that certain popular
cultural programs and television shows will
disappear altogether if a public-service
broadcaster is established.
Until now some
of the public-service broadcasts have consisted of
controversial talk shows, in essence non-stop
rants by a few individuals from the pro-democracy
camp. (There have been a number of unauthorized
broadcasts in Hong Kong over the past years -
though not on RTHK, but via low-watt, pirate radio
transmissions. Some of the people involved with
those, including outspoken anti-Beijing
Legislative Representative "Long Hair" Leung
Kwok-hung, will be tried in coming weeks.)
The pro-government media have also been
floating the idea that people may have to start
paying for radio licenses to finance a
public-service broadcaster. Listening to the radio
has always been free, so strong opposition to a
new public-service broadcaster is most likely if
fresh revenue has to be raised.
This may
be one good reason many people are playing "Chu
Pui-hing". In English that "translates" simply
into "hiding behind a woman's skirt". But in
Cantonese "hiding behind a woman's bottom" is
utterly shameless. What more, a hooker's bottom?
Augustine Tan is a freelance
journalist based in Hong Kong.
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