No flesh, please, we're bookworms: pseudo-models banned from Wan Chai fair

Organisers of the coming Wan Chai Book Fair have learned from the mistake of its bigger brother, the Hong Kong Book Fair. Or are they just being prudes?

Wan Chai District Council and the Hong Kong Book and Magazine Trade Association, which co-organise the popular annual event at Southorn Playground, said they would ban all pseudo-models from showing up, and fair booths would not be allowed to sell their photo albums or related material featuring provocative poses.

Event spokesmen cited the pandemonium at this year's Hong Kong Book Fair when publicity-seeking models crashed the party and made a killing with sales of their racy albums. Bookworms found themselves surrounded by guys who were more voyeurs than readers.

'Our mission is to promote literacy and the joy of reading,' a fair spokesman said. 'We do not welcome publishers or publicists who have anything to do with pseudo-models.'

Perhaps they were overreacting. Most of the pseudo-models have disappeared without a trace - back to the obscurity from which they so desperately wanted to escape.

There is one exception. Chrissie Chau Sau-na (pictured) has genuinely become a media phenomenon, though not always in a positive light.