China Briefing | China shouldn’t cancel Piano Prince Li Yundi over one night with a sex worker. Look at Hugh Grant
- The pianist’s behaviour is inexcusable, but his ostracisation is overkill and refusing to forgive him risks wasting his talent when he still has much to give
- The vitriol he faces says much about the political and social climate in a country where the prevailing nationalistic sentiment tolerates no one whose life is anything less than perfect
Around the world, reports of celebrity artists caught with prostitutes have long been a staple diet of tabloid journalism and table talk. Often, the artists involved suffer an intense and short period of public shame and humiliation but their careers are not seriously affected and they are allowed to continue to enchant their audiences with their artistic talents. A case in point is Hugh Grant, the British actor who was arrested in Los Angeles in 1995 with a sex worker known as “Divine Brown” and charged with “lewd conduct” in a public place. He went on to make the blockbuster romantic comedy Notting Hill in 1999, among other movies.
As soon as the Beijing police announced Li’s detention on October 21, he turned overnight from being a household name – known as China’s “Piano Prince” – to a social pariah. He has been blasted in mainstream state media and stripped of honorary political titles. His social media accounts were shut down and his memberships of professional arts and performing associations revoked. His alma mater removed all references to him from its official website and removed a plaque from a piano studio dedicated to him. The latest episode of a popular television reality show in which he appears has blurred him out.
In a social media posting, China Central Television, the main official broadcaster, said Li’s swift fall from grace should serve as a warning to those celebrities whose behaviour challenged state laws or social moral codes. It ended with a Chinese proverb: “When one asks for calamity, there is no way of escape”.
As the state media relish in making Li a poster child for immorality, any moderate voice on social media pleading for some understanding of his situation and expressing sympathy given his talent, his decades of training, and his hard-earned international recognition is usually met with vitriolic attacks.
