Posted on 12/07/2018 9:11:33 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Jackie Chan might be the most famous Chinese person alive, playing the righteous action hero fighting villains in countless films that have put Hong Kong on the world map.
But the actor’s changing political stances and his failure to stand up for the interests of the city that brought him fame and fortune make him a hypocrite in the eyes of many Hongkongers.
Worst of all is Chan’s decision to feed children he doesn’t know, through his donations to Unicef, instead of providing for his estranged daughter Etta Ng Chok-lam. He has forced her to inherit the abandonment and trauma he experienced during his own childhood, which he outlines in his latest memoir, "Never Grow Up" .
Chan makes many honest confessions in the memoir – which was first published in Chinese in 2015 – and describes a quite painful childhood: he was removed from formal education at a young age and sent to the China Drama Academy, a boarding school where he faced strict discipline and physical punishment.
He also admits many failings, such as excessive drinking and drink driving, visiting prostitutes and gambling, as well as physically abusing the son he had with his wife, Taiwanese actress Joan Lin Feng-jiao.
While many have commended Chan for acknowledging his mistakes and he is earning sympathy in some quarters, don’t forget that Chan is hardly owning up to them. In the memoir he mentions a “serious mistake” he made in 1999, referring to the affair he had with actress Elaine Ng, but doesn’t even find the courage to print her name in the book.
He also fails to mention Etta, the illegitimate daughter he had with Ng. It has been widely reported that he has never had contact with Etta, who ran away from home, came out as a lesbian last year and recently married her girlfriend in Canada. As an adult and a parent, Chan put this innocent child through unnecessary suffering.
What truly angers many Hongkongers is the way Chan bends over backwards to please Beijing with “patriotic” statements that go against the core values of his native Hong Kong.
In 1989, he appeared to present himself as a hero for democracy at the height of the student protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, leading a marathon concert supporting the pro-democracy movement at the time.
But fast forward to post-handover Hong Kong and democracy is apparently a dirty word for Chan. “If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic,” he told the Boao Forum for Asia in 2009 of the city’s protests against Beijing’s interference in local affairs. “With too much freedom, we become like Hong Kong and Taiwan, such huge messes. I’m beginning to think that Chinese people need to be controlled.”
His love for the country paid off in 2013 when he was appointed a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a national political advisory body. His patriotic stance has also made him a wealthy man. He fights foreign villains in movies that echo the Chinese government’s “Chinese dream” narrative, such as Railroad Tigers (2016), Kung Fu Yoga (2017) and The Foreigner (2017), which together took 3 billion yuan (US$460 million) at the Chinese box office.
In August Forbes reported that he was the world’s fifth highest-paid star in 2018.
His blind support for the Chinese Communist Party is too much even for some internet users in China, one of whom labelled him “Hong Kong’s most famous shill” in response to a photo he posted in 2013 on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, praising the blue skies of Beijing.
With great power comes great responsibility. Chan’s fame and wealth have certainly given him the ability to make a difference, but his actions are at odds with the values of Hong Kong, and his empty confessions deserve no sympathy.
Perhaps people simply expected too much of Jackie Chan, who, as the title of his memoir suggests, has never grown up.
This is Jackie Chan’s fall from grace. throughout his career he was always widely respected as a “nice guy” who was funny and self-effacing and whose films always were blockbusters. He paid the price too, as he performed his own stunts, and his films would mean many broken bones.
But in many ways, its been revealed his personal life was a fraud.
This is life without Christ. He forgave the woman caught in adultery, but told her to go and sin no more. The most ethical secular system in the world and in history, which the Confucian system is, cannot go past the galactic barrier of one’s sins. (Nen Chang’s biography revealed that the Cultural Revolution was driven by a need to atone for the secular sense of sin.) It is Christ who paid the price for all sins, we have only to avail ourselves of his free gift of forgiveness. If we won’t do it, we can never pass a certain point, and will be condemned to the hell of ourselves alone forever.
I’m still a big fan of Chan.
Just as in the US, when you become famous, people think they know you and that they pretty much own you.
A lot of what that writer was upset about is none of her business. People do have private lives, and are not going to be perfect. They are adults and don’t owe us an account for every move they do or do not make. No, they don’t.
The less secure, lower esteemed stars may get caught up in Social Media, angry at faceless critics. Even beloved celebrities are permitted to keep some things to themselves without explaining and apologizing every other day in the week.
He sees more money in China....hope
they smuggle him into China and we never hear from him again...
South China Morning Post? Who cares or believes this?
RE: South China Morning Post? Who cares or believes this?
Here’s the opposite question -— why is it not to be believed?
This article is almost as funny as Mr. Chan is. You could make a drinking game out of all the virtue-signaling.
You mean that tag-less underwear is still just as annoying as the ones with tags?
It’s been 25 years but when I was in Hong Kong (pre-China take over) South China Morning Post was one of the best in the world for local and international news. The ships agent always brought a copy on board.
I fell out of love with him when he started bad-mouthing the U.S.A.
Hong Kong was nothing before Jackie came along?
For him it was all about selling movie tickets and getting endorsements. You can’t do that in China without approval of the Chinese government. All Chinese celebrities shill for the government as a result.
He only stands out because he started being famous before HK was under CCP control so he said more pro-democracy stuff in the past, so it’s obvious he’s changed tunes. But in reality, all Chinese people know that the celebrities are disingenuous when they talk about how much they support the government, that they say it because they have no choice.
As for his daughter, what a load of crock. She’s an adult and he has no obligations to support her and can spend his money how he wishes.
I haven’t been a fan since he slapped down American movie ticket buyers.
He says he never learned to read or write.
He’s an actor....what did you expect.
I never like Jacky Chan as an actor, his acting is atrocious and his movie plots are mostly laughably childish.
But he has a point saying China is not ready for democracy.
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