The fast food girlfriend as a talk show spectacle, but there's no solution
Updated: 2013-11-08 10:28
By Jony Lam(HK Edition)
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Despite recent politicization, Hong Kong is still a city where the language of class and collective action is non-existent. We have protests, but they are usually reactionary, in the form of "we don't want this or that." Our positive demands, what we want, never converge to form a common platform. Deep down inside, we don't know what we want.
This is where the viral Facebook post "Seeking all my life for a girlfriend who is willing to have fast food with me" comes in. Written by "bird no up," it tells the story of a young man whose finances were often in a deplorable state. He could only afford fast food meals with his dates; the latter dumped him because of that.
One day, finally, he met the girl of his life. The wonderful lady brought him to a fast food restaurant and paid for their meal. The young man was very grateful. They live happily ever after.
Although the concept is hardly original, the story receives thousands of shares, likes and comments. The comments reiterate the theme of the story and the story reiterates the theme of the city's most widely shared gender discourse - the Hong Kong women (gang nu) - the money-worshiping big spenders, who often also have a bad temper.
A recurring motif in popular culture, propagated by the mass media such as TVB's Bride Wannabes, the city's gender discourse is both uncritical and unreflective. It points the finger at stereotypes, but never helps us understand why people are who they are, or how the situation can be changed.
There used to be an illusion that a viral event such as this one will lead to discussion and debate, then to real changes. But in sociologist Zygmunt Bauman's concept of "talk show spectacle," the reality is more akin to reality.
The "talk show," for Bauman, allows private individuals to recognize their own fears and anxieties in other people's experience. But at the same time, it also renders the solutions to these troubles entirely individual. At no time does the "talk show" promote collective action directed towards common solutions. At best, one may learn new techniques, derived from the experiences and confessions of the "talk show" guests, to deal with one's own experiences. But individual troubles, having themselves been legitimated by the appearance of other individuals on the "talk show," remain always for individuals to solve individually.
In the viral post, what the men are looking for is not only a girlfriend who is willing to have fast food - she also has to be as pretty and hot as a celebrity and as wealthy as a tycoon's daughter. That shows that they are not only too ambitious, but also have a twisted conception of love and beauty. They have internalized the values of the rich and the powerful so strongly that they can't articulate their desires in their own terms.
A girlfriend who is willing to have fast food is not a solution to our problems either. It is unsustainable because fast food is unhealthy. We should strive for a society with an economy and an employment structure that offer better-paying and more stable jobs. People around the world often eat out much less frequently than we do. When they do go to a restaurant, they have tasty and wholesome food, which is much more expensive than our average supper. Dining out in these societies is an experience, not the kind of activity that involves stuffing edible substance down one's throat in a crowded environment that our young people in Hong Kong often do.
The solution is simple - a decent kitchen. Then people will complain about the size of the average apartments in Hong Kong and all that. Perhaps, an eternal fast food diet is a price to be paid for keeping all the urban country parks intact.
The good news is that KitKat, the latest Android version just released, will ingrain its search engine and virtual assistant even deeper into your life. "We want to get to the point where you glance at your phone and it always delights you with what you need," said Sundar Pichai, a Google executive who oversees Android.
With a phone that "always delights you with what you need," who needs a girlfriend?
The author is a current affairs commentator.
(HK Edition 11/08/2013 page9)