Dubious Achievement Award 2008: Winner
Edison Chen photo scandal
“A strange, strange ordeal” was what the star of the show called it in his public apology. We thought it was a blast, and a guaranteed winner of this year’s big award from the start. According to the official story, the actor/rapper/singer sent his laptop in for repairs at a Central computer shop. The next minute, 1,300 dangerous photos were floating around the internet. The nude pictures featured Chen in sexual poses with a number of girls, including celebrities Bobo Chan, Gillian Chung of Twins and film starlet Cecilia Cheung. While Emperor Entertainment Group launched a desperate damage-control campaign by claiming the photos were faked, they clearly weren’t.
The pictures multiplied across the internet, crashing local servers and dominating online forum discussions on the mainland. Scorn was heaped on the stars from finger-wagging moralists everywhere, while local Catholic bishop John Tong Hon urged us to purge any traces of the filth from our computers.
Aside from the celebrities themselves, whose careers instantly went down the toilet, perhaps the biggest losers of the whole affair were the Hong Kong Police Force. Saddled with their highest profile case in years, they went so far as to seek help from Interpol to serve justice. Ten people were arrested over the spread of the photos—a number of which were classified as “obscene”—and one man spent eight weeks in prison. Crowds quickly took the streets to protest the unfair hounding of local netizens and the disproportionate amount of resources devoted to a celebrity-centered case.
Repercussions persist even now. In a recent auction of personalized license plates dedicated to the Twins, good Twin Charlene Choi’s sold for $170,000, while Chung’s fetched a meager $11,000. Opening in cinemas next week, the film “Forever Enthralled” was due to feature Chung in an important role, but all her scenes have since been removed. Meanwhile, as Chen sits ensconced in faraway Boston, defense attorneys for one of the computer engineers on trial are now alleging that Chen may have been the maestro behind the entire photo leak himself.
Loser of the Year Award
The Hang Seng Index
Buoyant for so long, Hong Kong’s best friend plunged two-thirds in response to the recent global economic turmoil, leaving everybody down in the dumps.
Most Unfairly Detained Award
Christina Chan
The 21-year-old activist was bundled into a van and detained by police after protesting at the Hong Kong stretch of the Olympic torch relay. Chan went on to challenge the police’s disregard for her right to peaceful demonstration in court, while the police tried to justify their actions by saying they were trying to protect her from mobs of pro-China supporters.