While the photo was taken a month ago, the fairy sights have set off fresh outrage among social media users who thought it was all a bit much.
"What the actual f**k? Who in their right mind brings fairy lights on a plane?" Twitter user Akinsoul said yesterday.
"Trying to bring back the romance and glamour of first class air travel? Amazing length one can go to to get 'likes'," someone replied.
"A tad too contrived for comfort," said another.
Even travel experts weighed in.
"She's sitting in the seat backwards," aviation expert Scott Bateman pointed out.
Travel writer Cynthia Drescher said: "Awful lot of effort to make an already great seat (J, CX 77W) look Insta-glam. (She's sitting backwards/in the footwell, brought fairy lights, and has vacant side stare (at what?) down pat)."
Lee's post used the #cathaycreators hashtag and may have been paid content to promote Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific, the Independent reported.
The original post attracted more than 15,000 likes and mixed comments.
"This is ridiculous! This sort of staged nonsense is a joke. Nobody travels like this!!" someone wrote.
Another said: "I wonder how much time and effort was spent preparing this photo compared to actually looking out of the window. I'm not sure this is the best kind of advert for @cathaypacific #cathaycreators because it just looks a bit hollow, especially with the random fairy lights for no apparent reason."
Others praised Lee's work.
"How can people mock her efforts? She's delivered a brilliant photo!" someone wrote.
"Oh wow this is amazing! Love the lights," another said.
While it's a strange thing to pack in your carry-on bag, maybe people have been too quick to dismiss the fairy lights.
One Twitter user said she'd brought them on board before.
"I have tried Xmas lights or fairy lights to lighten up the doom & gloom in one of the worst night flights I know … where passengers sit stacked like sardines in pitch dark. the majority being too exhausted to continue watching B movies," they wrote.
