Zheng Jun, a veteran rock and pop star (left), and Han Han, a post-1980 writer (right) have very harsh verbal abuses against each other on the internet recently. [File]

There is at least one indicator of China's improving freedom of speech. Celebrities, those whose words are closely watched and followed by their fans, are getting obsessed with brawling within their niche.

The latest tabloid-headline-making bickering among celebrities was between Zheng Jun, a veteran rock and pop star, and Han Han, a post-1980 writer.

Han first demonstrated his literary genius on his blog by analogizing Zheng's appearance on a televised singing contest as a judge, with a slut trying to build a memorial archway for virginity.

Singing contests, despite their huge popularity represented by the enormous success of "Super Voice Girls" on Hunan TV last year, are considered as vulgar and unacceptable by many "cultural elites." As a novel writer immensely popular among those in his age or younger, Han did not forget to show his dislike of these programs,the Chinese versions of the "American Idol" song contest .

According to Han, Zheng had previously said the songs sung in these programs "could not be termed as music," thus by taking part in these programs, Zheng has lost the legitimacy to be a member of the "cultural elite."

To make the drama more dramatic, Zheng was fast to react to the criticism. In his blog, he launched a number of verbal attacks, satirizing Han's words to him boast the "lady's elegance on the south of Yangtze River." However, Zheng also acknowledged that he used to be discontent with some of the singing contests, but he has no problem with this type of program in essence, and wanted to take part in one of those to experience it.

Both of them dedicated a number of other articles to attack each other beyond the original fuse of taking part in the program. One does not have to read between lines to discern the personal attacks between them. Han said Zheng got "split personality," while Zheng implied Han as "rabid dogs."

Compared to Han's blog entries, Zheng's are much shorter, and according to his latest entry, he wants to call it a day, and deems the bickering as "not cool, and disgusting."

Whether it's cool or disgusting is probably a problem of opinions, but for a lot of fans who have been following the icons closely, they would either root for their stars and add more explicit and vicious comments after their stars' blog entries, or turn against their stars and root for the opposite.

It has been a live show of hatred and verbal abuses presented by the stars, who by their nature could solicit more hatred and verbal abuses among their followers.

But besides programs like singing contests, do we need shows like this?

（Chinadaily.com.cn） 

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