Recently, TVB aired the finale to Dance of Passion, its over-hyped 32-episode uber-serial about feuding firecracker-making families living in the plateaus of central China during the 1930s. After the finale aired, TVB reunited the DOP stars on a special followup program, the purpose of which was either to reminisce about their experiences on the production or to fix blame on someone for the show’s underwhelming ratings via a Cultural Revolution-like struggle session. Not sure which. In any case, some of the newspapers published articles about this post-finale program, and these articles noted that actress Ada Choi gave fellow DOP cast member Maggie Siu a gift…
[Ada Choi on the left in white; Maggie Siu on the right in denim - the Eighties are back, baby!]
Courtesy of ent.tom.com & www.xing-zhan.com (obviously)
The translation of the relevant excerpt from Jaynestars.com:
Ada also brought a special gift for Maggie, which was [a] cross with a lamb in the center of it. Ada said that the gift was very suitable for Maggie. Although they said that the ratings are beyond their control, they were happy to have collaborated together.
And the translation from TVBspace News Roundup:
Ada bought a present for Maggie, which was a crucifix ornament, featuring a cute lamb inside it. Ada says she found it suited Maggie, so she bought it for her. She says that as far as ratings are concerned, she can’t control them, but she is happy that everyone has had the chance to work together and everyone was very happy to co-operate.
Original Sources: Apple Daily; The Sun; Ta Kung Pao.
The sense in which such a gift – essentially a crucified lamb – would be “suitable” for Ms. Siu escapes me. If Ms. Siu despises lambs with such a burning passion that a graphical depiction of one overlaying an ancient and brutal method of execution somehow constitutes a suitable gift for her, then that’s…a little disturbing. But that doesn’t strike me as being very Maggie Siu-ish.
When I think of Maggie Siu, I do not think of lambs or crucifixion. Rather, I think of either (1) a talented, but low-profile film and television actress (lamb?) or (2) the woman publicly spurned by Freakin’ Ekin Cheng in favor of Gigi Leung oh so many years ago – seven, to be exact (crucifixion?).
Now if the ornament had featured Mr. Cheng being crucified, then that would make much more sense. However, while such a gift would be quite suitable for Maggie Siu, it wouldn’t be very Ada Choi-ish as a gift. When I think of Ada Choi, I think “Christian,” and I don’t think Christians are supposed to do things like that (at least in theory).
Ms. Siu, however, is not a Christian as far as I know, so the crucified lamb gift would not be very “suitable” in a Christian-to-Christian sense, either. I could be wrong, however. After all, Swearin’ Sheren Tang, perhaps the Number Two Christian entertainer among Hong Kong’s most prominent, is one of Ms. Siu’s best friends and has been for many years. Decades even. And now Number One Ada Choi is giving her crucified lamb ornaments because they’re “suitable” for her. Perhaps they’ve been double-teaming her? Or perhaps Ms. Choi knows something that we don’t?
In any case, what I do know is that gift-giving plays a significant role in Chinese culture, and Ada Choi, being Chinese, is a giver of gifts…with a Christian twist. Basically, she likes giving out the Christian trinkets. In fact, she likes it A LOT. She likes it so much that she’s even given me such gifts – an absurd notion if only because (1) I’m a nobody and (2) we’ve never even met.
Who’s next? John Tesh? Rene Russo? Is Kirk Cameron going to be giving me Christmas presents? Are people going to start rising from the dead?
But it happened. Somehow, a superstar Christian Hong Kong television actress, eight thousand miles away, ended up gifting me with a pair of chopsticks inscribed with something Christian on them (a brilliant fusion of Christianity and Chinese culture, by the way; too bad I have no idea what it says), as well as a Cross-shaped keychain that says “Jesus Loves Me” on it (in English). The latter was packaged with a Bible verse…
Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
1 Peter 2:24
Indeed.
With such a track record, a crucified lamb ornament is clearly not such a weird gift for Ada Choi to give at all. Although if she’s giving Christian chopsticks and keychains to nobodies like me, then one might expect her to give something, well, bigger to a professional colleague like Ms. Siu. Say, an actual lamb or a life-size Cross. But regardless of the size, the message of the gift is clear: Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, crucified for humanity’s transgressions, so that we might live – believe it!
That means you, Maggie Siu.
So bold and so Ada Choi. I realize that some people will be thoroughly annoyed at the thought of someone giving away blatantly evangelistic gifts or whatnot. But if you look beyond the gift to the giver, I think you’ll see a life marked by the crazy eternal afteraffects of a soul revolution. Look beyond that and you may even see the ultimate Giftgiver/Revolutionary, Himself. The Cross must be planted very deeply in Ada Choi’s heart in order for her to give it away, both to coworkers with whom she works shoulder-to-shoulder and to complete and utter strangers half a world away.
And that’s why, at least in Hong Kong Entertainment Christendom, Ada Choi is Number One.
