Chinese actress Yang Mi is one of those super protective celebrity parents who prefer to keep their kids away from the spotlight, including on social media. However, this has only caused the public to become even more curious about Noemie aka ‘Little Glutinous Rice’, her six-year-old daughter with ex-husband Hawick Lau.

Recently, photos of Hawick taking his little girl to school went viral online and sparked heated discussions among netizens, who as usual had a lot to say about the matter.

One observation — and a rather cruel one, we might add — made by netizens was that Noemie hasn’t inherited her mum’s conventionally beautiful features, namely her wide eyes and high nose bridge. In fact, it was pointed out that Noemie looks more like Hawick before he had work done. For those who didn’t know, the Hongkong actor has been the target of plastic surgery rumours for years, and the new snaps only served to fuel those speculations even more.

“If you want to determine whether a celebrity has had plastic surgery, look at their old photos or their children’s appearance,” wrote one netizen.

Then there were the comparisons between Noemie and a certain Mandopop king. “How does this kid look so much like Jay Chou?” another netizen exclaimed, an admittedly amusing sentiment that was shared by many other Weibo users.

On the other hand, there were quite a number of netizens who tried to defend Noemie, saying that it’s wrong for a young child to be subjected to such critical comments about her looks. Sadly, this isn’t the first time a famous offspring has been scrutinised like that: remember Annie Yi’s daughter? Yeah, let’s not have anymore of that.

Hawick was also accused of using his daughter as a publicity tool since he didn’t seem to bother hiding Noemie’s face from any potential shutterbugs, and was urged to “respect Yang Mi’s way of protecting Little Glutinous Rice”.

While they probably mean well and all, can you imagine having to take measures to conceal your kid’s face every single time you go out?

Photos: PBE Media, 娱记皇叔/Weibo, Jay Chou/Instagram