Entertainment queen Cha Xiaoxin, ambition in the pen
She experienced the golden age of Hong Kong's entertainment industry and lamented the changes in the world from prosperity to decline
Global People reporter Yu Chijiang
Biography
Zha Xiaoxin, born in Hong Kong, graduated from Hong Kong Baptist University in 1980, and is the most important entertainment "famous name" in Hong Kong. In 2015, he published a new book" "Running a Marathon with You".
In Guangzhou at the end of October, on Shamian Island on the Pearl River, the river breeze blew up the last bit of heat in late autumn and blew into the bungalows of the old concession. The commissary owner who stepped on the flip-flops was taking care of the shelves while chatting with regular customers, and the TV was turned on, playing the variety show of Hunan Satellite TV.
Such a picture is not unfamiliar to Zha Xiaoxin, who told the "Global People" reporter: "Now there are many people in Hong Kong who watch mainland TV. "She herself read that even if she came to Guangzhou this time to promote her new book written to her son, "Run a Marathon with You", she did not forget to chase the mainland variety show "Idol Is Coming", because it contained her former neighbor Cai Shaofen and Lin Qingxia, who had not been seen for a long time." In Hong Kong, Lin Qingxia is reluctant to contact the media, but now she can feel her change, and the program has become more confident. Zha Xiaoxin said. A few days ago, Lin Qingxia was eating at a restaurant in Hong Kong, and happened to meet Zha Xiaoxin, and Lin Qingxia greeted her: "Xiaoxin, I have read your articles and like them very much." Then, send a hug gracefully.
Even Lin Qingxia, who has blue eyes, is the queen of Hong Kong's entertainment. She has hosted radio programmes for 15 years since 1997 and has interviewed all the big names in Hong Kong, and few Hong Kong people don't recognize her voice. Once, she and her son were wandering the streets of Japan, and his son suddenly pulled her aside and said, "Don't talk!" There are a few Hong Kong people in front of you, and you will definitely not be able to leave as soon as you open your mouth! "So in Hong Kong, I can walk down the street, but I can't talk." Zha Xiaoxin laughed.
The Who Doesn't Sleep
Zha Xiaoxin's dedication is famous, and her sharpness and pungency are more famous, so the stars love her and hate her. When asked by her peers why she was always so sharp, she didn't think so: "I come to work, but I don't come to be friends with celebrities." ”
Hong Kong people love to listen to her interviews and watch her columns, and those celebrities who are usually fully armed often become endless in front of "Little Sister Xin". For each interview, she made an appointment in the café and let the stars empty for ten minutes before starting. "Let them look at the streetscape and familiarize themselves with the environment." When the tea came, everything became much smoother.
Last year, Zha Xiaoxin interviewed the newly married Zheng Yijian, and at the end, she casually asked about the wedding ring, and Zheng Yijian shyly took off the ring to show her: "The ring has no diamonds, no pattern, and the fingerprints of the other party are engraved inside, which are customized from Australia on the Internet." Zha Xiaoxin wrote this detail into the article, and Zheng Yijian's agent saw it and said to her: "You are really powerful, usually he will never show the ring to others." Zha Xiaoxin replied: "As long as you don't deliberately, he will naturally let down his guard." ”
This ability does not happen overnight. In 1980, Zha Xiaoxin went to Hong Kong Weekly as an entertainment reporter. A year later, the boss asked her to find her own resources, she flipped through the phone book in her hand, there were only two people in the show business circle. She stayed in the TV restaurant and spent the day always getting something out of it. "At that time, Andy Lau was still 'small fresh meat', and when he saw him come down to buy coffee, I asked him: Can I do interviews, can I leave a phone?" Andy Lau didn't understand and left the home phone. "Later, I asked Andy Lau to take a cover, I wanted to help him borrow clothes, I didn't know his size, so I called his home, and Liu's father would tell me."
She also went to the "disco" squatting spot. At eight or nine o'clock in the evening, she dressed up and went to the "disco", which was the favorite place for celebrities at that time. She and Mei Yanfang, Liang Chaowei, and Jackie Chan all met there, "Playing guessing boxing with Mei Yanfang and Jackie Chan often wins them." Jackie Chan was furious and said not to lose to girls like this. "At that time, the stars didn't have agents, assistants, and the relationship with journalists was not like now.
It was more than 3 o'clock when I got home, and I had to get up at six or seven o'clock to go to work. Therefore, colleagues jokingly called her a who does not sleep.
The phone book grew thicker and thicker, with more than 1,000 numbers at most. "I set myself 'metrics' every day, talking to two celebrities on the phone at least every night." She hit them one by one in order, and started all over again after a round. "At the beginning, it may just be said that today's pat scene hurts, care about it. Later, after talking more, the star took the initiative to talk to you about some things, and the relationship was closer, and it was easy to get a lot of exclusives. ”
The competition among media people is fierce, Zha Xiaoxin has a lot of exclusives, always takes the headlines, and is squeezed by the main orchestrator, "He later set the rules, writing headlines can not be signed, then I will write two; in the end, it becomes that the headlines, two articles, and three articles cannot be signed, so I will not write." She felt that this competition was not interesting, and she was about to resign in a huff, and the boss kept her and asked her to go to the advertising department to make a transition. However, her friend Ni Kuang said to her, "I think you have to continue writing." Later, the editor-in-chief resigned, and Zha Xiaoxin took over. At that time, she had only worked for 4 years, and she didn't know if she was sure, "At that time, the word 'Yong' was written on her chest, and when she did it, she said it again!" ”
Send undercover candidates to run for Hong Kong sister
This year, Zha Xiaoxin published her first book in the mainland, "Running a Marathon with You", which has no gossip and entertainment, records the story of her growing up with her son, and is regarded as a "parenting cheat" by women in the workplace. There are many problems that professional women encounter in the book, such as "busy". In the book, Zha Xiaoxin recalled a rare time to pick up her son from school and go home, and her son was shocked: "Are you trying to scare me to death when you suddenly come?" "Working in this industry, you have to give up a lot of personal time." ”
In addition to busyness, another problem is controversy. Hong Kong people have a heavy concept of elites, often dividing people into three, six, and nine classes by occupation. "When I first started doing entertainment, many friends who entered large companies gradually stopped contacting." At a social event, Zha Xiaoxin introduced herself, and several lawyers in sharp suits looked at her contemptuously: "Oh, you are an entertainment journalist who hides under people's beds and exposes people's privacy." Not to be outdone, she said: "You are the so-called lawyers who know the law and break the law, specialize in drilling gray areas, and exonerate criminals for money!" She said: "Anything can be tolerated, but it is half a step against discrimination, vowing to defend the dignity of individuals and industries." ”
Zha Xiaoxin never thought that "entertainment journalists" were a bad profession, and sometimes even experienced the joy of fighting wits and courage. In the 1980s, the Miss Hong Kong election was in full swing. Zha Xiaoxin arranged for two reporters disguised as staff, sneaked into the background to shoot a lot of first-hand information, and magazine sales increased greatly; the next year, the TV station was a foot taller, and the staff review was strengthened, and Zha Xiaoxin directly selected two beautiful women to participate in the competition, arranged for them to be recommended and sponsored, and sent them to be undercover. The two undercover agents quickly became acquainted with others and also found Maggie Cheung, the seed player of the year. Therefore, Zha Xiaoxin took the lead in asking photographers to take a group of photos of Maggie Cheung. Soon, Maggie Cheung was a hit in the competition, and Zha Xiaoxin took the opportunity to launch a cover story, which sold out.
In 1997, Zha Xiaoxin transformed into a radio host, and in the following ten years, her revelations shocked the whole of Hong Kong several times. She once criticized Jackie Chan in the show, and the big brother was so angry that he called the scene directly and said that he wanted to fight with her. The most famous is that in 2011, she broke the news that Nicholas Tse and Cecilia Cheung divorced the inside story, and the entertainment industry was in an uproar.
Many people criticized Zha Xiaoxin for invading her privacy under the guise of press freedom, but she retorted: "My material comes from acquaintances, and if he says he can't say it, I will never say it." I know a lot of things, but what can be said and what cannot be said, I am principled. ”
"Many people think that entertainment media is not pursued, but it is not. Entertainment news may not be as important as political or financial news, but a Hong Kong survey showed that more than 80% of readers read the entertainment edition first in an issue of a newspaper. Zha Xiaoxin said, "Celebrities have a great impact on society, such as Andy Lau asked his 'fans' not to come to see him, but to study well." On the contrary, banning bad stars now does not set a bad example for young people. ”
Hong Kong is in pain
Recently, there was a picture that made Zha Xiaoxin particularly moved. On October 21, IU, a famous Korean girl singer, held a concert in Hong Kong and sang the classic song "Xi Ti Street" in standard Cantonese. This song was written to Hong Kong by the famous lyricist Huang Weiwen, singing nostalgia: "Just like this district, once called a beautiful world; good times will not be every day, the ladder can not only climb up ..." The new generation of Hallyu sings the song of Hong Kong people sighing, it sounds like some kind of generational transition, Zha Xiaoxin said: "This makes me very touched." ”
She congratulated herself on her birth in the golden age of the Hong Kong media: "I debuted in the same year as Andy Lau, and now 35 years later, everything has become very fast, but Andy Lau is still very well maintained." 」 "It's like a joke, and it's a little bit of a sigh." After saying that, she took out the hand cream and wiped it up, and her thin body looked tired after a few days of publicity, but still sat up straight.
More than 20 years ago, Hong Kong's entertainment industry was at its peak, the four kings were in the sky, TVB TV dramas triggered a boom in the cross-strait and three places, and Hong Kong movies reached the peak in both the art and the market. That was also the busiest time for Zha Xiaoxin, running magazines and hosting programs.
However, in the new century, hong Kong's media and entertainment circles have begun to show fatigue. As money gradually moved north, the industry began to stagnate, first threatened by Taiwanese pop culture, followed by the Japanese and Korean waves, and the Hong Kong entertainment industry, which once looked at Asia, is now embattled. "Now few people are willing to invest money in Hong Kong, and superstars are going to be piled up with money!"
Two months ago, the entertainment magazine Suddenly Week, founded by Zha Xiaoxin in the early 1990s, ceased publication, setting off a "final" rush in Hong Kong. Reporters have come to ask Zha Xiaoxin's feelings, who knows that she is very calm, saying that this is the trend of the times, "the whole of Hong Kong is experiencing pain, people need to adapt, for change or to look down." ”
Being bearish does not mean sitting on the mountain and eating the sky. Zha Xiaoxin still writes columns for some media and is currently the most prolific columnist in Hong Kong. She is ambitious and "hopes to help Hong Kong's local entertainment industry seize a little power." Not long ago, Hong Kong entertainer Lin Jiadong invited her to see her own new film, which is a very pure Hong Kong local film. After she went back, she seriously wrote an article recommendation, hoping that the film would have the opportunity to land in mainland theaters. "Later, a mainland film dealer came to me and said that they wanted to buy this film and asked me if I could introduce it. They're going to talk about cooperation next. ”
Zha Xiaoxin said that today's Hong Kong, only wait, "3 years later, the industry will be fixed." Now the Hong Kong entertainment industry and the media circle are expecting a change, a miracle."
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