Sex appeal sells private tutors in Hong Kong


Angela Yiu and Stella Cheng spent weeks meeting with fashion stylists and photographers before deciding on the miniskirts and high heels to wear in their promotion campaign.

They're not models peddling perfume or sports cars. They're English tutors who earn good money helping secondary school students pass Hong Kong's grueling exams to get into college.

"Their long legs are the most beautiful ones in the tutorial industry," said Ken Ng, head of Modern Education, one of the city's biggest tutoring businesses. "This is our selling point."

Sex appeal has become a hot selling point, just as important as teaching ability and knowledge, in Hong Kong's hypercompetitive world of cram schools - or bou zap se in the local Cantonese dialect.

Attractive teachers are marketed like movie stars. Their schools show them off on billboards, full-page newspaper ads and TV screens in railway stations and on buses.

Some tutors have their own teams of stylists, fashion designers and photographers, Ng said. They also have personal Web sites, where potential students can see their photos, read their online journals and download video clips of "gag moments" in class.

It's just the latest twist in the competition to grab the business of students caught up in Hong Kong's make-or-break exam culture. Youngsters take two college exams during their seven years in secondary school, and they have to pass both to get into a university.

So hordes of students trek to after-school lectures at tutoring centers.

The Census and Statistics Department says one-third of the students in secondary schools sought private tutoring in the 2004-2005 school year, spending a total of $18.9 million a month - 25 percent more than five years earlier.

Industry pioneers such as Modern Education and King's Glory each have about 10 centers around the city, each offering around 200 lessons a week.

All the companies boast of their ability to give youngsters an edge by predicting what questions will be asked in the exams, employing teams of full-time analysts who study patterns from previous exam papers.

With competition growing fierce on that front, the tutorial centers in recent years have increasingly focused on promoting their teachers as trendy icons consumable by students.

"When our rivals are equally good at predicting the exam questions, we need a new ground to outrun them," Ng said. "And that is the tutor's appearance."

Last summer, Ng hired Yiu, who once won a modeling contest, to teach English along with Cheng, described by Ng as "a gorgeous former lawyer."

Yiu, who has a business degree, said: "Being a model is not a long-term career. I should plan for the future. I know my good appearance has a market."

Indeed, tutoring is one of the more profitable jobs in this Asian city. Top tutors who have more than 4,000 students can earn high salaries.

Elaine Chow, an advertising executive, said tutoring businesses are applying a "star-making" promotion technique in which tutors dress fashionably and are given nicknames like "the Godfather of Science," "Brand-A tutor" or the "Queen of English."

"In the advertisements, going to tutorial centers is portrayed as a trendy after-school activity more than a chance to acquire knowledge," she said. "This is a twisted tutoring market."

Percy Kwok, a former education researcher of the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studied the private tutoring phenomenon in 2003, said tutorial centers closely follow the consumption culture of youths to catch their attention.

"They may even expose tutors' private life if necessary," he said.

But he added that while tutorial centers have become highly commercial, they provide useful techniques in tackling exams, such as predicting question types. Daytime teachers don't have comparable resources or the time to do that, he said.

Tutorial centers will continue, he said, "as long as university certificates and exam results are the best evidence to prove one's competence and guarantee a stable income."

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Sinking starlets see nothing wrong in stripping to save career


Ryann Connell

Those seeking happiness in life could do worse than take a leaf from the book of fallen actresses who pose nude for photo collections, Motoji Takasu -- a man who's arranged about 500 such publications - tells Shukan Asahi.

Takasu says that many actresses who agree to bare all for the cameras are often in careers taking a downward turn.

But he says that most of the actresses are hardly bothered by their dwindling fortunes, writing their fall off as part of a life filled with ups and downs, with some of them not even regarding stripping as one of the lower points.

Takasu says Yoko Shimada, who co-starred in the movie version of James Clavell's "Shogun," was the most relaxed of all the actresses who have posed nude for him. Despite having made a name for herself outside of Japan, Shimada never was stuck up and was perfectly happy to chow down on a bowl of noodles at a neighborhood ramen restaurant. And even though she'd done some time in Hollywood, she had no qualms about posing nude for Asahi Geino, arguably the lowest of Japan's lowbrow men's weeklies.

"When I asked her why, she simply said because the magazine had asked her to do it," Takasu tells Shukan Asahi. "She didn't care about her past glories. She was simply living the moment to its fullest."

The nude photo collection producer says that apart from only a few very lucky actresses, most thespians have to spend some of their career struggling, which makes the times when they do have work all the more delightful. He adds that when these women act like stars, it's nothing more than a drama set where everything is for external appearances. Takasu says that the majority of actresses who pose nude normally live very quite private lives and that the majority who've undressed for him have been polite and humble even if their public persona has not always been like that.

Takasu says ordinary women are usually much more interested in fashion than actresses who undress for the cameras, caring little for their fashions.

"Ordinary women probably wear pricier undies than the big name actresses," he says.

Takasu says that actresses who pose nude generally know when they need to perform.

"Top actresses know when to turn it on and off. They know when they need to look good. They know the times they need to perform," he says.

Takasu says nude model actresses are usually so relaxed, they're unlikely to be the types to take their own lives. He urges people considering ending it all not to do so, no matter how down they feel.

"Nothing is ever so bad that you have to take your own life," Takasu tells Shukan Asahi. "I can't understand why these people don't just strip down to their last thread and bare everything to the world before starting all over again."

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Serial sexual offenders on the loose across Taiwan, the Police Reporrts


Police and a women's group are warning the public on up to five serial rapists who are on the loose in northern Taiwan and Kaohsiung city.

Among the criminals, the most active has committed sixteen offenses since October of 1997 in Taipei City, Taipei County, Taoyuan County, and Hsinchu County.

Targeting women who live in old apartments with no security guards, the "Apartment Wolf" most recently went on the prowl in 2003 when he used handcuffs and a knife to subdue two separate victims in Taipei City.

The rapist is described as between the age of 30-40 years old, 170 to 175 centimeters tall, with short, curly hair and dark skin.

Modern Women's Foundation also warned of another rapist who has committed more than ten rapes inside apartments of greater Taipei.

The foundation's chief executive Chang Chin-li said that a third rapist who is believed to have committed more than seven rapes in Taipei City and Kaohsiung City has the habit of wearing gloves.

The women's group reported that two serial sex offenders were recently arrested by police, including Wei Yung-ching, who targeted children, and another who victimized betel nut beauties.

Wei had served time for sexually abusing children before being caught in the act on January 9, assaulting a six-year old girl.

Following Wei's case, Chang pointed the finger at the Ministry of Justice, saying that not more than ten sexual offenders currently on parole are under electronic surveillance.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Interior, a total of 6601 cases of sexual abuse have been reported last year with an average of 18.1 cases taking place every day.

That figure does not include sexual abuses which was not reported, which the MOI puts at around 60,000 cases a year.

Modern Women's Foundation said that only a tenth of those charged with sexual offenses actually go to jail resulting in a large number of sexual offenders on the loose.

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China will step up enforcement of laws against sex-selection abortion


Steven Ertelt,
LifeNews.com Editor

On a day when hundreds of thousands of Americans are lining the streets of Washington to protest 34 years of legalized abortion, China's political leaders say they will do more to stop sex-selection abortions there and to correct a growing gender imbalance that its one-child family planning program has yielded.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Monday that the government will increase enforcement of laws designed to prohibit the use of ultrasounds to determine the sex of an unborn child.

Xinhua says the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party and the State Council, or cabinet, has issued a new document saying anyone running afoul of the gender identification laws should face "serious punishment."

"The document said the gender-ratio imbalance, which has been developing for some time, amounts to 'a hidden danger' for society that will 'affect social stability,'" the government news service reported.

Authorities will also step up monitoring hospitals and other medical facilities to ensure ultrasound isn't improperly used or that the abortion pill is given out only for purposes of a sex-selection abortion.

Last year China scrapped plans to prohibit sex-selection abortions altogether but has put forward educational campaigns telling Chinese of the virtue of girl babies.

China currently has a male-female ratio of 119-100 while the number is closer to 103-100 in most industrialized nations.

As a result, large numbers of Chinese man are finding it difficult to get married. The general imbalanced has also caused an increase in crime, selling of girl babies, prostitution and forcing women into sexual slavery or domestic positions.

Because Chinese couples are limited to one child, abortion and infanticide are frequently used to ensure that child is a boy. That is especially the case in rural areas where boys are preferred because of their ability to carry on the family name or run the family farm.

Some girls are even sold or given away in order for Chinese families to have one son to comply with the family planning rules.

Chinese couples determined to have a son easily get around the new laws as a black market has sprung up of people with ultrasound machines in the trunks of cars or house closets are willing to divulge the sex of an unborn baby for a price.

As a result, the skewed male-female ratio is growing worse as there are 130 boys to 100 girls in the provinces of Guangdong and Hainan.

China instituted the coercive family planning policy in 1979 and Chinese women and families have been the victims of an intense campaign ever since that has involved forced abortions and sterilizations, and the arrest and harassment of those who resist it.

But the policy has caused the gender imbalance to explode.

Ironically, China distributed ultrasound machines to local clinics on a wide scale after the coercive family planning policy was instituted to ensure women were not pregnant and violating the one-child program.

Despite the problems, Xinhua reported Monday that the new document says the one-child policy and reducing the number of people in China is still a priority.

"Maintaining a low birth rate is the priority of family planning during the next phase," it said.

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