The Real Side of Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan's memoir is very honest

I have yet to read Jackie Chan's explosive memoir, Never Grow Up, but I don't want to.

He sounds like an absolute pig.

Part of it stems from not growing up with his family -- his father emigrated to Australia where he worked as a cook for the American Embassy. Chan wasn't a good student and so his parents took him out of the school system, and at the age of six sent to the China Drama Academy where he boarded and trained for 10 years in martial arts and acrobatics.

He reveals how much of a b***** he was to women

There the students had to train 18 hours a day from 5am, doing stretching, acrobatics, weapons training, acting and martial arts. In a 2008 interview, Chan recalled, "It was really arduous, we hardly had enough to eat, enough clothes to keep warm, training was extremely tiring, and Master could cane us anytime!"

As a result Chan didn't have much experience socializing with others, and in Never Grow Up he reveals his various relationships with women including prostitutes, but he treated them terribly. The best known story is how he cheated on his wife, Taiwanese actress Joan Lin by fooling around with beauty queen Elaine Ng Yi-lei and it resulted in the birth of his daughter Etta Ng.

She recently declared she is lesbian and married her Canadian girlfriend last week. Both biological parents did not congratulate her, nor does Chan mention her in his book.

He also recounts going on a date with singer Teresa Teng at a French restaurant. She daintily held a spoon while she ate her soup, while he picked up the bowl and slurped it down...

Chan with his Taiwanese wife actress Joan Lin

Aside from not being gentlemanly, Chan wasn't much of a good father in the beginning. One time he and Lin were having an argument and he picked up his toddler son Jaycee with one hand and threw him across the room, landing on the sofa. Chan recalls Lin being "terrified".

She said: "He's just a child. Why did you do that?" He apologized and said it would never happen again.

This lack of education may explain Chan's insecurities and his pursuit of wealth and fame. In the book he boasts about how much cash he carried around and always paid for his entourage's meals. He would also walk into stores and buy expensive watches to show off his wealth.

It's the usual story of nouveau riche people, and Chan let his wealth get to his head.

He writes that as a stuntman, "We all knew that if something went wrong we wouldn't live to see the sun rise the next day. We had a short term mentality which means recklessly spending our money."

He had an affair with Elaine Ng who gave birth to Etta (left)

In another part of the book Chan writes about being drunk all the time and crashed his Porsche in the morning and his Mercedes-Benz later that evening.

It's interesting the multimillionaire 64-year-old is being so frank about everything -- why did he do that or he was following someone's advice to come clean? It's a lot of information for the public to take in, a lot of it undesirable.

Chan lost his integrity several years ago when he began spouting pro-Beijing views that left a sour taste.

In 2009 during a panel discussion at the Boao Forum for Asia, Chan question whether or not freedom was a good thing. "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

A few years later in 2012 he also criticized Hong Kong people for protesting too much.

Who is going to buy his book? Not people in Hong Kong that's for sure!

Video of the Day: Chinese Bagpiper

A bagpiper playing tunes to solicit donations for poppies

Yesterday when I was coming out of the MTR in Central, I could hear the distinct sounds of bagpipes being played. What was that about?

When I looked out the window of the station I could see -- two young Chinese men dressed in tartan from head to toe and wore poppies for Remembrance Day and were soliciting donations for the local veterans.

One bagpiper decided to take a break and talk to some gweilos, while the other gave his rendition of Teresa Teng's The Moon Represents My Heart.

I'd never heard it played on bagpipes before!

And as my friend YTSL points out, where else will you hear that, but in Hong Kong!

True that.

It was really nice to see these young people engaging with people, who asked to take pictures with them and they immediately obliged.

Actually it's sad that hardly any Hong Kong people wear poppies on November 11 -- do they not know that Canadian, British, and Indian troops tried to protect the city from the Japanese, but failed in the Battle of Hong Kong December 8-25, 1941?

The soldiers were ill prepared and over 3,000 died. The city surrendered to the Japanese, who then occupied Hong Kong until 1945.

Nowadays Hong Kong people -- Hong Kong and mainland Chinese know November 11 as Singles Day (11-11) -- the biggest online shopping event of the year thanks to Alibaba!

Gabriela Montero Living with Music

Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero is a whiz at the ivories

Today I had the opportunity to interview an amazing pianist who is classically trained, but can also improvise, much like a jazz musician -- on the spot.

Gabriela Montero is a Venezuelan pianist who will be performing tomorrow night at City Hall Concert Hall, playing Schubert and Schumann in the first half, and then after the intermission, she will take suggestions from the audience of what to play -- as long as they hum it to her.

She explained that improvisation was something classical musicians did in the 16th and 17th centuries, when composers would write "cadenza", and expect the musician to add their own flourish.

But later on, musicians didn't know what to play, and eventually it was written out, which is why people like me have always thought that classical music was about playing the piece exactly as the composer had intended, down to every last note.

Here she is riffing off of Bach's Goldberg Variations:

As someone who learned classical music on the piano, I could never even dream of improvising -- I thought it was something only those who were well versed in music could do, but Montero is in an league of her own.

When she was a baby she was already playing a toy piano in her crib. By the age of five she gave her first public performance and at eight performed her first piano concerto.

She likes to connect with the audience with improvisation

I brought up the description of being a prodigy, but she doesn't like the word, saying it separates her from others. She also frankly admitted she quit piano twice, one time not touching the piano for two-and-a-half years because she didn't want music to dictate her life.

"Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I like it," she said. It took her years to reconcile with her talent and also the fact that she was a single mother meant that she had to use her skills as a musician to support her family.

Now she seems very happy to be making music on her own terms, and using it has a platform to speak out about her home country that is falling apart due to the corrupt government, with people starving from not being able to get access to food.

In 2011 she wrote Ex Patria as an emotional musical picture of what is going on in Venezuela, and while she has performed it 10 times, including a recording, she hopes she doesn't have to play it again.

The following year Amnesty International made her an honorary consul, where she uses the position to talk about Venezuela, and she is now basically in self-imposed exile; if she were to return, she says she would be put in jail. She now lives in Barcelona with her husband and two daughters.

But back to the improvisation -- I hummed her Teresa Teng's famous song, The Moon Represents My Heart.

She played what I hummed perfectly on the piano, dabbled a bit with it and then began to play. And watching her riff off the phrase in various styles was amazing. We were just spellbound watching her play.

After she finished, she said that when she improvises, it has to be recorded because she cannot play it exactly the same again -- the music flows through her onto the keys and once it's over, that's it.

Montero seems at peace with her spellbinding talent, probably thanks to age and having tried to quit twice and then coming to terms with it, but also determined to use it the way she wants to.

She has a warm spirit and eager to share her music with everyone.