As I lay in my sick bed (well, yes it's just a canker sore but it felt very painful), I read a lot and watched some movies. Considering that my friend pressured me again to have Winston give it a try in showbiz, I could not help but wondering about the ruthless nature of the show business. Most people who give it a try don't make it. And even those who make it may disappear after a while. Many of the child stars turned out badly, with Jodie Foster and Natalie Portman among the minority of child actors transforming into great actors when they grew up.
Somehow I thought of the Chinese actresses. "The Soong Sisters" was a movie I liked very much, partly because of the melodramatic nature and partly because it's got all these stars, with Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh and Vivian Wu playing each of the three sisters. Now in their 40s, they are still active actresses, but none of them is married with kids. Regardless of what they say in interviews, I know that being single AND childless is not exactly a great state for a woman. And to some extent, I kind of feel that their acting careers have also reached as high as it could have ever reached. Wouldn't they feel a panic right now?
Then I thought of two other Taiwan-born Chinese actresses Brigitte Lin and Sylvia Chang, who are about a decade older than the aforementioned actresses. Somehow when I think of the two of them, I feel an invisible positive force lifting my spirit up. Then I realized that it is because their lives have been one of constant reinvention, which makes what's in the future infinitely more interesting than what's in the past, despite how glamorous the past might have been.
Brigitte Lin was discovered when she was 17, and started playing the herione in the numerous movies and TV series adapted from Qiong Yao's sappy novels. Qiong Yao is very much the Danielle Steele in Chinese rated PG, and she was very well versed in classical Chinese poetry. Her novels read very beautifully, the girls (they were always girls instead of women) were always utterly beautiful and innocent, the boys dashing and romantic, and the boys' mothers inevitably evil and beyond help. Brigitte Lin played numerous such characters and became a personal friend of the author, but was burnt out by both work and love, so she took a break and went to the US. After she returned to Taiwan, the movie industry there was in distress. There were no more decent roles for her. She packed her bags, moved to Hong Kong, learned Cantonese and became the leading action star of Hong Kong cinema. She retired at the age of 40 to marry a rich business man, had two daughters, and recently wrote a highly acclaimed memoir. Now that the daughters are slightly older, she is back in the public life, and is focused on her writing. From what I heard, she writes very well.
Sylvia Chang was a much more defiant character. She refused to conform to a lot of the studio rules at the time, and perhaps it had cost her somewhat. She went through tumultuous relationships, and eventually had a son whom she adores. She still acts in both Chinese and American films, but she is much more of a director now. I greatly enjoyed her films such as "Xiao Yu", "Tonight nobody goes home", and "Tempting Heart". She's incredibly confident, funny and capable. Unlike other actresses, she did not have to obsess over hanging onto her youthful looks (although to this day she looks young and beautiful for her age), because she has successfully reinvented herself. She has moved on with the times, as has Brigitte Lin.
The key difference between these two actresses and the others is that they did not let their past successes deter them from reaching new heights and redefining themselves. The past, while glamorous and successful, was the past, and to hang onto the past would be akin to trying not to age or die, neither of which is possible. Instead, they have gone through constant reinvention of themselves, and always much more forward instead of backward. They achieved stardom very young and went through passionate love affairs. Then they decided to have kids and be great and devoted mothers. Then they moved onto a new professional challenge that's not dependent on youthful looks, instead of lamenting on how beautiful they once were in their youth. Maybe other actresses ought to look at their examples.
Indeed when I think about myself, I guess I ought to learn a thing or two from them about reinvention as well. Each one of us goes through phases in our lives. For one reason or another, perhaps we are more concentrated on one thing. If that one thing becomes a success, the fear of losing that success could hinder our vision in seeing what else is possible. Instead, perhaps what I am doing is a phase of my life right now. Indeed the economic times are hard, which makes entrepreneurial effort particularly hard. But my son is just a toddler and perhaps also at the peak of his cuteness, so I am spending more time than the busiest professional women in the world on raising him, entertaining him and educating him, especially since Michael needs to concentrate on his career and often works 7 days a week as well as pulling all-nighters all the time. If circumstances change, I will make changes accordingly. Going with the flow does not mean not taking one's life into one's own hands, but rather to enjoy each moment and maximize the benefit offered by each phase.
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