Jackie Chan’s comments that freedom may not be good for China were taken out of context, his spokesman said Tuesday, while Facebook users and Chinese scholars condemned the veteran actor on the Internet in a spreading backlash.
The 55-year-old star of the “Rush Hour” action comedies caused a huge uproar after he told a business forum on Saturday that it may not be good for authoritarian China to become a free society.
“I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not,” Chan said Saturday, adding freedoms in his native Hong Kong and Taiwan made those societies “chaotic.” Taiwan, which split from China in 1949, is democratic and Hong Kong, a former British colony now ruled by China, enjoys some free elections.
“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,” he said.
Hong Kong and Taiwanese legislators lashed out at the comments, with some accusing Chan of insulting the Chinese race.
Solon So, the chief executive of Chan’s company JC Group and his main spokesman, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday the actor was referring to freedom in the entertainment industry and not Chinese society at large.
Chan was speaking at a panel discussion about Asian entertainment industries and was asked to discuss movie censorship in China.
“Some people with ulterior motives deliberately misinterpreted what he was saying,” So said.
But Chan discussed China as a country — not its entertainment industry specifically — immediately before making his comments about freedom, according to an AP reporter who attended Chan’s panel discussion in the southern Chinese island province Hainan.
“Sure, we’ve got 5,000 years of history, but our new country has just been around for 60 years and the reforms for 30 years. It’s hard to compare us with other countries,” Chan said, referring to China’s communist rule and capitalist-style reforms under the communist regime.
“But I feel that in the 10 years after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, I can gradually see, I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not,” Chan continued.
Meanwhile, the public backlash against Chan grew.
A group of Chinese scholars published a letter on the Internet on Monday accusing Chan of “not understanding how precious freedom is,” even though “free Hong Kong provided the conditions for you to become an international action star.”
A Facebook group set up by Hong Kong users calling for Chan to be exiled to North Korea had drawn more than 2,600 members by Tuesday. The group also posted form letters urging Hong Kong’s Baptist University and Academy for Performing Arts to strip Chan of honorary degrees they gave the actor.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board, for which Chan serves as an ambassador, had received 17 complaints as of Monday that his comments “hurt the image of Hong Kong and aren’t reflective of Hong Kong people,” a publicist said. She declined to give her name because of company policy.
The University of Hong Kong’s students’ union said in a statement Monday Chan’s comments “cast shame on the entire Hong Kong citizenry” and “may poison the younger generation.”
Opposition Taiwanese politicians on Monday demanded that the city government of Taipei strip Chan of his role as ambassador of the Deaf Olympic Games to be held in the Taiwanese capital in September.
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Associated Press writer Bill Foreman in Guangzhou contributed to this report.
Film director Zhang Yimou has admitted to having violated China’s one-child policy by having one girl and two boys with his wife, allegedly subjecting himself to fines that could be as high as 160 million yuan ($26 million).
In a statement published Sunday night in his weibo microblog Zhang, 63, admitted to having had three children, apologized to the public and said he would accept whatever punishment to which he may be subjected under the law. It was the first time Zhang had directly addressed questions about the number of children he has had with wife Chen Ting.
The couple have sent representatives to the family planning commission in Wuxi, Chen’s hometown, to cooperate with its investigation.
Since May, when rumors surfaced that Zhang has had seven children with four women, he was said to have been in hiding from the family planning commission. The growing public speculation about his children had turned Zhang into the villain in a national morality play about wealthy people who flaunt the one-child policy. Last Tuesday Nanjing-based Oriental Guardian newspaper had even run a front-page editorial urging Zhang to come forward to faces the charges against him.
Wuxi’s family planning commission too was feeling the heat. It was the target of an editorial by the state-owned Xinhua news agency for failing to enforce the law by finding and punishing Zhang. Its lax enforcement undermined the credibility of the local government and violated its duty to promote social equality, the editorial argued.
The commission had said that it had had sent a team to Beijing to find the director without success.
Zhang’s weibo statement alluded to those efforts, saying that someone was using illegal means to have his children followed, violating the family’s privacy. It also complained that someone was spreading false rumors that Zhang had seven or eight children with several women and that he was paying the mothers 10 million yuan for each child they delivered.
The family planning regulations of Jiangsu province in which Wuxi is located imposes on each spouse of a couple violating the one-child policy a fine equal to four times the average local disposable personal income in the year before the child is born. The fine can rise to five to eight times the local disposable personal income if the couple has two or more additional children. If the couple’s actual income is more than the average local disposable income, the amount by which it exceeds the average income will also be fined up to two times.
Zhang is generally considered China’s most successful film director. His acclaimed films include acclaimed works like Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou and Shanghai Triad, as well as commercial blockbusters like Hero and House of Flying Daggers He was also selected to stage the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Zhang’s fame and success virtually ensure that he be punished harshly to show the nation’s commitment to enforcing the law against the wealthiest and most influential citizens as well as ordinary people. Promoting social equality by ending special treatment for the rich and powerful has practically become a mantra of the central government under President Xi Jinping.
A Chinese Australian musician is the first person in the world to make a full-time living impersonating the young N. Korean leader Kim Jong-un in an oblique testament to Kim’s status as a geopolitical icon.
The impersonator is a 35-year-old Hong Kong-born Chinese Australian who goes only by the first name Howard for fear of possible retaliation by N. Korean agents. While he was an unknown musician Howard became a figure of fun among friends and family after Kim became N. Korea’s leader following the death of his father Kim Jong-il in December of 2011.
If he could inspire so much amusement and amazement from practically everyone he met, Howard decided, he might as well capitalize on the resemblance. He donned a Mao suit, parted his sidewall haircut down the middle and took to wearing on what he calls “an unhappy expression” to enhance the resemblance.
To promote himself as a professional impersonator Howard began posting pictures of himself as Kim on his Facebook page last April. Before long he had achieved enough fame to secure invitations to perform at concert and appear in commercials. An Israeli burger chain used Howard for the lead role in a commercial in which Kim threatens to nuke the US.
Recently Howard managed to garner attention from the global media by strolling around crowded Hong Kong streets in his Kim getup. In addition to posing with passers-by impressed by the likeness, Howard entered the consulates of the US and South Korea to seek asylum. The officials were unamused. Howard then went into the N. Korean consulate and claims to have fooled the staff into thinking he was their number one comrade.
Howard’s ability to make a living as the fulltime impersonator of the leader of a reclusive and impoverished regime is a good indication of the amount of global press Kim Jong-un has managed to receive in the two years since stepping into his father’s shoes. Unfortunately, so far that publicity has been mostly of the negative variety, making Howard’s success more of a mockery of, rather than a tribute to, Kim’s own career.
Psy hopes to have his new album out in November, two months later than his original forecast of a September release, according to his cover interview in the October issue of Italian Men’s Vogue.
“I am making a lot of songs and so many good things are happening to me right now as a creator, I am just enjoying this period and I think maybe by November, people can get my new songs,” Psy said.
Psy revealed that one of the songs on his new album will feature Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, one of his longtime idols.
“I just finished recording my next song with a legendary artist, Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. When I was in middle school, I literally cried when they were singing Crazy or Amazing or whatever, they were my lifetime role models, and now I am collaborating with Steven Tyler! … Man, I love my life.”
If he’s right about the November release, the next album won’t be as late as Gentleman which debuted three months later than Psy’s original forecast of January.
But Psy is brimming with confidence in his creative powers at the moment. As he sees it, he has entered a golden age of creativity thanks to the success of his second international single “Gentleman”.
“After Gentleman was out, I was really satisfied with what it had done, because it proved that I was not a one hit wonder, a lucky shot,” he explained. “Nobody can ever label me that now.Gentleman has 500 million views right now, the song also hit number 1 in 81 countries, and I am really relieved by that. Now I can really do what I have to do, comfortably. I don’t have to make another dancing phenomenon, I am just going back to where I came from and it’s really comfortable right now.”
His move in early summer to his Westwood condo appears to have helped keep his creative juices flowing. He claims he has been recording every day since then.
“I am on fire right now. I really can make great songs these days, and I think this is the best period in my life. I feel like Hyun-jin Ryu a baseball player from South Korea who plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“One time he was just trying to swing it while he was closing his eyes, and he accidentally hit a home run, and the next time he was up, the crowd was calling for another home run, but honestly, he went for a bunt instead, so runners could advance to second base. So for me, “Gentleman” was that bunt, so now runners are on second base, and now it’s my time and I don’t have to hit another home run, and if I just hit one single and you can score because I made a bunt that’s even better.”
Despite the move from Seoul to Los Angeles and his US manager Scooter Braun, Psy’s team remains all-Korean. The only exception is Ricardo Caput, the Brazilian chef who won the worldwide talent search Psy organized earlier this year to find his new personal chef. Caput was chosen after Psy culled the videos of 350 contestants expressing their philosophy on music, dance and food. He won a 1-year contract at $40,000 a month to tour the world with Psy and cooking his favorite foods: bibimbap (rice with assorted vegetables), mandoo (dumplings) and kalbi (barbecue short ribs).
Psy’s original ambition was to become a music producer while attending Boston University & the Berkley College of Music. He never graduated, but he did write hundreds of songs without selling a single one. Two years later he decided to put his songwriting talent to good use by becoming a lead singer. He also composed songs for some of friends who are Kpop artists. Though he managed to achieve a following in Korea, it wasn’t until mid-July 2012 when he posted the video for Gangnam Style — a single from his sixth album titled Six Rules — that Psy skyrocketed to global stardom.
In the span of two seasons Koji Uehara has gone from being the dog of the World Series to MVP of the American League Championship series. The New York Times is suggesting the transformation may have had something to do with Uehara’s decision to go clean-shaven on a team that has gone caveman.
Uehara’s MVP award was earned during six tense innings as the Red Sox closer in the ALCS against the Detroit Tigers. With cool efficiency he locked up three saves and a win by using his combination of splitters and fastballs to make eight batters mistime their swings while allowing only four hits and no walks. The final 5-2 win over the Tigers was probably the least stressful inning of the series because Uehara had the luxury of working with a 3-run cushion.
But he was feeling the pressure of the occasion nevertheless.
“To tell you the truth, I almost threw up,” he has admitted when asked about his nerves.
The cheers he received while hoisting the MVP trophy in front of a roaring crowd at Fenway after the final ACLS win was a far cry from the tears he was shedding alone in the locker room after his third and worst outing in the 2011 playoffs for the Texas Ranger when he allowed three runs to cap off a miserable season in which his ERA had soared to 33.75.
Back then, in his first season with the Rangers Uehara had been wearing the beard he had grown while playing his single season with the Baltimore Orioles. He still had it when he signed with the Red Sox last December. But in January he shaved it off on a live network TV show in Japan, giving in to the demands of fans who didn’t like it, as well as an inner voice that told him it was time to try a new look and attitude.
“I just didn’t know where I was going with that beard,” Uehara told reporters before the final game of the ALCS. “So I thought it was best to shave it off. It was a good time to do it, and I think many people were happy. They said I looked younger.”
Of course he didn’t know then that his Red Sox teammates would decided to grow beards for the 2013 season. Regardless, the move may have worked some psychological magic. Uehara’s ERA plummeted to a razor sharp 1.09 during the regular season as he notched 21 saves since being promoted to full-time closer on June 26 after Joel Hanrahan was forced into elbow surgery and Andrew Baily injured a shoulder.
He held that average into the playoffs by giving up only a single run in nine innings over eight games. He won two saves in the division series against the Tampa Bay Rays and three in the ALCS. But Uehara is noncommittal as to whether losing the beard made the difference.
For a pitcher who struggled as a starter in both Japan and with his two prior MLB teams during which he had only logged 14 saves, Uehara seems finally to have hit his stride late his career. But one would be hard pressed to argue with his timing.
Ryu Hyun-jin gave up just three hits over seven innings Monday night to lead the Dodgers to a crucial win and avoid getting down by three games in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series against the St Louis Cardinals.
The pitching duel between the Korean lefty Ryu and the Cards ace Adam Wainwright was even through the first three innings. Wainwright surrendered a lone hit while Ryu allowed one walk while retiring 12 of his first 13 batters.
It wasn’t until the fifth inning that the Cardinals scored their first hit of the game with a single to right by third-baseman David Freese, the MVP of the 2011 World Series. However, Ryu worked efficiently to prevent the Cardinals from capitalizing on that hit by preventing any runner from getting past second base.
The only real drama for Ryu came with two outs in the seventh inning. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly came out to the mound with a translator for a conference with the Korean sensation. The talk seemed to have the intended effect. Ryu ended the inning by striking out Matt Adams. Korean flags erupted across the stands while catcher A.J. Ellis pumped his right arm in the air.
The Dodgers scored three runs on an Adrian Gonzalez RBI double, a Yasiel Puig RBI triple and two hits by Hanley Ramirez. With the Dodgers now trailing the series 2-1 game 4 is scheduled for Tuesday at Dodger Stadium with game 5 on Wednesday. If the Dodgers manage to win at least one more game, the series will shift to St Louis for the final two games.
The win comes as a huge relief for Ryu. After a sensational first season with 30 starts, a 3.00 ERA, 154 kills and a 14-8 record, he had struggled in the division series against Atlanta as the first Korean pitcher to start a playoff game. He was pulled after just three innings in which he allowed four runs on six hits.
Cincinnati Reds outfielder Choo Shin-soo got on base three times Saturday during a loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates to join an elite company of MLB players who have notched a set of impressive stats in a single season.
Choo is now one of only seven players in MLB history to hit 20 home runs, steal 20 bases, score 100 runs, walk 100 times and get on base 300 times in a single season. The others are Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell, Carl Yastrzemski, Chipper Jones, Bobby Abreu and Mike Trout.
Choo led off the game with a single into center field. In the third inning he was hit by a pitch for his 100th walk of the season. In the fourth inning Choo walked again for his 300th on-base of the season. The only other players to get on base at least 300 times this season are teammates Joey Votto and Trout.
Choo had already distinguished himself early in the season by
But the Reds’ leadoff batter couldn’t spark enough offense to offset Pittsuburg’s six homers, their biggest homer output in six years. The Pirates won 8-3 and secured home-field advantage against the Reds for the National League wild card playoff game Tuesday night in Ccinnati.
Choo has compiled other impressive stats. He leads the National League in being hit by pitches with 26 plunkings for the season. He is also second in the league in both runs scored (106) and walks (111).
Choo, 30, came over from S. Korea to join the Mariners in 2005. He was traded to the Indians in 2009, then to the Reds at the end 2012. His current salary is $7.35 mil. Choo’s consistency in getting on base has some talking about him as becoming MLB’s best leadoff batter, a status long held by Ichiro Suzuki while playing for the Mariners.
Dodgers pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin has moved into a tie for the most wins by a rookie pitcher in the National League and into contention for Rookie of the Year honors.
Ryu notched his 14th win of the season in seven innings at AT&T Park by holding the San Francisco Giants to a single run while Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp contributed solo homers. The win improves Ryu’s record to 14-7, tying him with the Cardinals’ rookie Shelby Miller. It also brings his ERA back down to 2.97 from 3.03, to help meet his pre-season goal of keeping it in the 2s while compiling a winning season.
That was Ryu’s 29th and penultimate start of the regular season. He was able to turn 22 of those into quality starts in which he gave up three or less runs in at least six innings of work. His final regular-season outing will be Sunday against the the Rockies in Colorado.
After some early season struggles Ryu has improved dramatically in the second half of the season, leading the Dodgers to 11 wins in his last 15 starts to help secure the National League West crown. He has also been a real workhorse, having pitched 188 innings so far. If he pitches just two more innings in his final start Sunday against the Rockies, Ryu will earn a third $25,000 bonus. He had already earned one for hitting 170 innings, and a second for hitting 180.
Of course the bonuses are more symbolic than a significant financial incentive given the 6-year $36-million deal Ryu signed with the Dodgers early last December. Ryu is also the first Korean player ever to be signed through the posting system under which the Dodgers had paid $25.7 million to Ryu’s KBO (Korean Baseball Organization) team, the Hanhwa Eagles, for the exclusive right to negotiate a contract during a 30-day period. That posting fee went to the Eagles, but brings the Dodgers’ total investment in Ryu to $61.7 million.
During his rookie season Ryu, 26, has earned the nickname “Korean Monster” in recognition of his outsize talent as well as his 255-pound, 6-2 frame. In addition to shredding the pre-season and even early-season scouting reports, Ryu’s strong performance has turned him into one of the Dogers’ stars as well as a genuine celebrity among Koreans in both the US and back home in S. Korea. He has responded well to the adulation, compiling a 1.78 ERA when pitching at Dodger Stadium.
Baseball pundits began tossing around Ryu’s name along with those of teammate Yasiel Puig and the Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez back in August after the Dodgers won 10 straight games during the first half of August behind Ryu’s 4-1 record.
Ryu was born in Incheon on March 25, 1987. He is a left-hander whose fastball has been clocked at up to 95 mph but his changeup is considered his best asset. In the off season Ryu is pursuing a master’s degree in community physical education at Daejeon University. He played seven seasons with the Hanhwa Eagles before entering the majors.
Self-taught Japanese dancer Kenichi Ebina won Season 8 of NBC’s primetime hit America’s Got Talent Wednesday night to capture the $1-million prize.
Ebina, 39, beat out 75,000 singers, dancers, magicians, comics and other performers to become the first Japanese to win America’s Got Talent. For the finale Ebina put on an innovative robotics performance featuring moves that seemed to defy both gravity and the limitations of the human skeleton. His competition included a magician and a trio of tenors.
Ebina had been impressing the judges since his first audition in Chicago. An act he described as a “dance-ish” performance impressed the panel of four judges so much that he was sent directly to the live rounds at Radio City Music Hall without having to perform at Vegas week.
Ebina’s innovative approach to his performances also played a role in keeping both judges and audiences amazed. In the quarterfinals he interacted with the characters in a video playing on a large screen behind him while also depicting each character by turns. In the semifinals he performed an elaborate mime routine in coordination with a projected image of himself. A week later he was voted into the finals for an interpretive dance about love, death and the afterlife.
Ebina was born in Kawasaki, an industrial city near Tokyo. He taught himself his rich repertoire of dance moves by studying martial arts, mime, jazz, freestyle, hip-hop and ethnic dance. His career as a public dance performer began as part of the dance troupe BiTriP which took first prize at the Apollo Amateur Night in Harlem, New York City. Ebina then went on to win the Apollo Amateur night seven times as a solo act between 2006 and 2007. In 2007 he gave a dance performance on the TED series entitled My Magic Moves.
In addition to his public performances Ebina has hired out to perform at private events, including for celebrity clients like Madonna.
Ebina is married, a fact that became public when he was asked what he planned to do with the $1 million prize money. He replied that he should ask his wife before deciding how to spend it.
A South Korean worth nearly a billion dollars has mastered the knuckleball well enough to earn a start with the Rockland Boulders of the CanAm League.
Min Hur is set to start in the penultimate game of the Boulders’ 2013 season under a contract signed Friday. The game is scheduled for Sunday, September 1 at 5 p.m. against the Newark Bears at Provident Bank Park in Ramapo, New York which serves as home stadium of the Pomona-based Boulders. The live broadcast of the game will be fed to S. Korea’s estimated 20 million baseball fans by TV, the internet and mobile phones as well as to upstate New York fans on cable TV.
Hur’s contract with the Boulders makes him simultaneously a pitcher for a professional US team and owner of the Goyang Wonders of the Korea Baseball Organization. Hur founded the Wonders in 2011 as Korea’s first independent pro baseball team with a small portion of his fortune. Thanks to the runaway success in China of Dungeon and Warrior, a video game Hur developed, as of 2011 his fortune was estimated at $900 million. It’s big enough that Hur considered buying the Los Angeles Dodgers when it was put up for sale that year.
The media attention Hur grabbed as one of Korea’s richest and quirkiest entrepreneurs has been magnified by his quest to become a pro knuckleballer. His eight years of practice throwing knuckleballs included instruction from Hall-of-Famer Phil Nierko. The result is a 56-mph knuckleball that Hur had taken to rookie tryout camps with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners before finally signing with the Boulders after a two-week tryout period in July.
“I’m happy to show the Wonders players and others who haven’t had a chance that you’ll see a fruit of your effort if you don’t give up and keep trying,” Hur philosophized. “I’ll continue to take up challenges for a higher stage.”
Hur even gave up his CEO position with his ecommerce site wemakeprice.com last month to pursue his dream of becoming a professional knuckleballer.
The Boulders are promoting their colorful new pitcher as “Minsanity”.
“Min Hur has earned the right to pitch for the Rockland Boulders as our first Korean player as well as our first knuckleball pitcher,” said Boulders President Ken Lehner. “We believe that Min pitching for the Boulders is the first step in an international working relationship between the Goyang Wonders and the Rockland Boulders that will be beneficial to independent baseball as a whole. The Knicks had Linsanity in 2012 and the Boulders have Minsanity in 2013.”
Hur isn’t shy about promoting himself. He has bought and passed out tickets to his US pro debut to the local Korean community and has made available souvenir t-shirts reading “Min Mania” and “Minsanity”.
Hur has also been aggressive in promoting his Wonders. He took the whole squad to Japan for 50 days as part of its three months of winter training. He has been spending about three or four times the $880,000 he had originally budgeted annually for the team. As a result several of its players have been signed by teams in Korea’s top-tier pro league.
“Hur devotes his private fortune to run the baseball club,” remarked the Wonders’ general manager Ha Song.
