Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Yesteryear's Idols

Howdy folks,today's Tuesday,long time no blog.How was your weekend and Monday,folks?Enjoyed yourself?I am sure you did...,except Monday that is,when you had to crawl out of bed on a drab Monday morning and drag yourself back to work in the office.What a horrible way to begin the week.Even after 3 years of working,I can't get used to it.But for me,yesterday was made a whole lot better when Rogue suddenly took the afternoon off for medical.So yeah,effectively we won't see her for the rest of this week because she is on leave from today till Thursday.It's times like this when we know God is good.Oh,erm,what a terrible thing to say.Don't snigger.She's supposed to go on course on Friday for a satff appraisal course for supervisors but apparently she told Banshee she might be around.Weird.How can she skip the course?Unless she figures that no matter how many times she takes the course,she'd still do our appraisals the same old crappy way she always did anyway...so why waste time!Clever Rogue.

Yesterday was a horrible day for blogging.I was hopping mad yesterday.You know why?It's because an hour and a half of blogging was lost because of a bad server.Yesterday,after typing my masterpiece(which is this piece),I clicked the "Publish Post" button and the screen showed a server error message.Try as I might to go back to the previous page,I kept getting the same server error message.After a while,I decided to give up and log in again,hoping somehow the blog server would have saved the post I so carefully composed.It didn't.#$%^&*.What kind of crap is this???What did I do to deserve this???Actually I know who to blame.The bloody government of course.Everything is the government's fault.Why can't they spend more money and buy better quality servers so that employees like me can work and blog in peace???Can't they even do something simple like that right???Oh you say that they paid me to work and not to blog???Aren't they the ones who advocate work-life balance in the first place???Blame blame blame....others.

It's taken me a long time to pen this topic...and it's just taken longer because I have to retype every bloody word all over again.Also yesterday,just as I was in a blazing mood to retype,Shawdowcat suddenly plonked herself at my desk and I had to stop typing.The headaches of a secret blogging movement.I'd hope that I can finally publish this today without any glitch.Just as a precaution,I'd save the whole damn thing in Word before I click "Publish Post".Don't want the same wasted effort as yesterday.

Anyway,last Friday lunch,the X-Men had an interesting discussion about yesteryear's idols and where they are now.By yesteryear's idols,we are talking about a couple of the 80s premier 玉女.Some of you fellows born in the early 80s probably have no idea what we are talking about.Never mind,just read on about what this uncle has to say,ok?

First,let me again,go on a short detour and talk about Joi Chua 蔡淳佳.During the Friday lunchtime discussion,Iceman talkd about her and how her songs seem so 新瑶 and very different from the music climate of today which is dominated by R&B and hip-hop.He said that she was probably born in the wrong era and if she was came out during the age of 新瑶,she'd be really popular and famous.But in this present age,she might be a little out-of-place.Jean Grey told me during yesterday's lunch that her dad bought Chua's album and that the genre she dabbles in is more jazzy than folksy.Fair play.I didn't buy her album so I don't know.But either way,jazz and folk are uncommon genres in the present Chinese music scene so she's still vastly different from a lot of pop singers around.

Still,fair play to her.She has done well.From what I know,she had been top of the local RIAS charts for 4 weeks,which means she has sold quite a number of albums locally.Congrats to her for doing well.I have one minor complaint though.Have you guys seen the trailer advertisements on TV plugging her album.The one where they show a series of MTVs for her various songs?Are those MTVs low budget or what?! Because from what I can see,all the new MTVs seem to be showing is her running in some wasteland in Tuas surrounded by waist length wild lalang and grass with various assorted jungle vegetation.In fact,it looked like some kind of army exercise area to me where soldiers have to hack through with parangs(actually I think it's Pulau Ubin and I don't think I'm wrong).How Joi can pretend to be idyllic and happy in a jungle with wild vegetation standing at almost her height is beyond me.Somemore,she wasn't wearing jungle fatiques or anything like that.Instead she's wearing this open and flowy dress exposing her delicate arms and legs to the grass and mosquitoes.Wah liao eh,I bet she was itching to death druing the entire shoot.Can't they find a better location?She looked like she was doing a tourist promotional video for a nature reserve or something.

Back to the 玉女 topic,Apparently Iceman saw Vivian Chow 周慧敏 in a Taiwanese talkshow 康熙来了 where she appeared as a guest to talk about herself.The show's on cable,channel 52 at 10 every night if you are interested.Anyway,according to Iceman,Chow was very PC in her answers and very boring.Not a surprise then,she still hasn't changed in that aspect.What's changed though is her appearance.She looks really old now.Actually from pictures I saw of her in magazines and Chinese evening dailies,she already looked old...ok,she looked her age but that's the sad part.Chow used to be the fantasy of many young men like Iceman(not me,I liked Joey Wong 王祖贤 more).Now,she looks like an auntie.Ok,still a great looking auntie but an auntie nonetheless.Time is relentless and merciless...even on beauties like Chow.

Speaking of 玉女,we of course cannot ignore the recent attempted comeback of Charlie Yeung 杨采妮.She re-entered the entertainment scene in the new Jackie Chan flick,New Police Story,but again she is another who suffered from age.Obviously she can't look as youthful as she did when she left the scene so abruptly all those years ago but seeing her now,looking older and a bit knackered,it's painful.Seriously,I'd rather she didn't come back and leave the audience with great memories.But I think she was forced to return,being in some dire financial straits.But what can she seriously acheive?That's no way she can relive former glories.There are too many younger and now,prettier lasses out there who have taken over her place and more pretty newcomers will come in and overshadow her.

Then of course,there is Joey Wong who apparently is preparing for a new movie role.But recent tabloid pictures of a bloated and fat Joey with her large tummy hanging outside of her pants have left a lot of people shaking their heads.How did the svelte and beautiful Joey end up like this?She of course said that she was preparing for her role in the new movie but no one has bought that.Again,disappointment at the current plight of another yesteryear idol has left a lot of men like me feeling...they should never come back into the public eye like this.

Of course,the return of yesteryear idols really started from 费翔 who made such a dramatic return a couple of years ago.It launched a series of returns of former mega-stars who tried to recapture some past glories,including Samuel Hui 许冠杰 and 风飞飞.But none of them were particularly successful.If nothing else,I think there is a lesson there to be learned by other former stars hoping to make a return to make a quick buck.George Lam 林子祥,please take note.

Let's divert the topic for the ending because I want to talk about Taiwanese idol serials 偶像剧 for a change and why I particularly hate the Taiwanese version.It's simple really.Just a couple of reasons.

Taiwanese idol serials have this tendency to potray ruffians,who treat their girls or other people badly and rudely,and gangsters as romantic heroes.Which is something I totally do not get.Why is gangsterism desirable in any way?Is it the bad boy appeal to girls that the TV producers are trying to capitalise on?Look at the number of jerks on screen masquerading as heroes.In Meteor Garden 流星花园,let's face it,F4 was nothing but a bunch of rich and spolit ruffains who treat people badly and get away with it because they have tousled long tresses and hence are supposed to be cool.In The Outsiders,斗鱼,they celebrate gangsterism outright.For what?A good and gentle guy with tousled hair can just as easily be a great lead.Just look at Bae Yong Jun 裴勇俊 and his popularity in Asia.Actually anotehr thing I can't stand stems from the fact that because ruffian behaviour is perceived to be cool,half the time,the characters in the serials are fighting or shouting at each other.Must be the Taiwanese culture or something.Can't they be more refined?

Another reason why I don't like Taiwanese serials is because they have seriously stupid plots.The pop group Energy recently acted in some serial called Dance Of Michael 米迦勒之舞 that have such a ridiculous plot,any intellectually challenged person watching it would probably find it stupid and insulting.And then there is the serial blood vomitter 何润东 and his stupid serials where he usually dies but not before vomitting buckets of blood through some incurable disease,probably stupidity.For a sample,please look at 雪地里的星星.Hey,the Taiwanese are even stupid enough to retry a Beach Boy remake called 原味的夏天 using 邱泽 as the lead.I also vomitted blood myself watching this serial.But then again,fair play to them.We did attempt our own stupid Beach Boys remake called 随心所遇 with Tay Ping Hui and Ix Shen as the leads.To me,they looked more like a bunch of unemployed beach bums who didn't have a decent job and spend their weekdays buying $2 tickets into Sentosa and playing beach volleyball horribly.

Anyway,the idea of the gangster as a romantic is not new at all.It probably started in the 80s when the HK movie making empire started churning out these Andy Lau,Chow Yun Fatt,Leon Lai,Aaron Kwok gangster movies where they starred as righteous and romantic gangsters who get hacked into pieces at the end.Girls,take note,gangters use parangs to hack people...to death where necessary,where's the romance in that?And anyway,if you girls are really so hard up for bad boys,I have a great idea for a 偶像剧 plot that'd have you girls swooning all over the bad boys in the show.It'd be an idol serial about Al Qaeda suicide bombers.You can't get anyone more bad as that.I can imagine all the girls swooning over all these idols already...or at least their bodyparts after they blow themselves up.