The Diary
of
Anne Ku

4 April 2001 Wednesday

HELLO! MAGAZINE

Yesterday evening while picking up some minor groceries, I instinctively purchased the 10th April 2001 issue of Hello! magazine. It was the first time I had purchased it, and I didn't feel the least bit guilty.

Only at the clinic or on the airplane would I see and read this magazine. Reading is hardly the word - "wanna-being" is better. This is the magazine of beautiful people. I suppose, there is value in appreciating beauty. But these were not just beautiful people, but the rich and famous.

Privacy, it is said, is the luxury of the rich and the dignity of the poor. In Hello!, the rich open their doors to public scrutiny. After all, who would want to pay STG 1.35 to view an ordinary person's dwelling?

I had written an article entitled "Beautiful People" in my freshman year at college. I had used my Chinese name to disguise myself as it was for the college newspaper. It reflected my impressions of my fellow classmates after the initial culture shock, homesickness, and twenty pound weight gain of attending a private college in the South. What made these people beautiful, rich, and privileged? I didn't belong in this group and wasn't sure if I wanted to be.

I should dig that article up. It had made the mother of a Korean classmate of mine cry. She had felt the same unspeakable inadequacies when she was attending college. It may be that we all want to be the rich, beautiful, and famous but what we really want to do is to read Hello! magazine in the privacy of our own homes.

Yesterday

Tomorrow