Paparazzi

I live in a quiet neighborhood where some celebrities live in. So quite often I see celebrities walking down the street; or buying coffee next to me in Starbucks; or renting DVDs from Movieland. Sometimes it’s hard not to notice them because they all have those kinds of celebrity looks e.g. wearing sunglasses (even in indoor areas), causal but smartly dressed and have a big sign ‘leave me alone’ marked on their foreheads.

A week ago, the street I live in had paparazzi moving around and for the past 2 days they basically lived in their cars on the street. I was quite confused at first and later someone eagerly fed me the information: Cecilia Cheung’s(張栢芝) bf lives a few blocks away. I thought, ‘ok, big deal.’

I went to Movieland with my hubby this afternoon (our usual weekend routine) and we kind of bumped into Cecilia’s bf (apparently he was on his way to gym). There were so many people gathered around him and cameras pointed at him. Those paparazzi kept taking pictures of him and tried to stop him from leaving. My hubby said if he were the guy, he might hit one of those paparazzi.

I’m not a big fan of Cecilia but I felt sorry for her. Being in a relationship was meant to be happy. But can anyone be happy and maintain a relationship under such pressure and public exposure? I guess not. Many people criticized her, accused her and judged her. Of course she didn’t behave her best either but I believed some of her negative images were actually misled by the reports from these paparazzi. Please give us a break and give them a break. We are not really interested.

quote
“我在過去五十年, 從未遇到一個壞學生. 他們當中有些資質略遜或能力平平, 有些天賦聰敏優異, 更有很多屬於天才類型. 對於每個學生, 我都認為必須盡力為他們奠定良好的成長基礎, 着眼的並非今天的小孩子, 而是他朝長大後的男子漢.”

喇沙學校 彭亨利修士於一九八九年的講話