We give Jackie Chan a hard time around here, but yesterday his father passed away and so, even though I have some photos of Jackie riding a pony in some extremely silly togs, I won't be putting them up out of respect for his loss.

Jackie's dad, Charles Chan Chi-peng, was born in Shandong in 1914 and his story is that of millions of Chinese who grew up in pre-1947 China. He learned martial arts from Master Zhang at a young age (receiving most of his pugilistic education from Master Zhang's wife, in fact), dropped out of school, became an aide to a Nationalist general, was fired when he dropped his rifle which then discharged, worked on a cargo ship, engaged in some fabric smuggling, was arrested by the Japanese and forced to watch executions and told he was next in line, was finally freed through personal connections, went back to work for the army, was the victim of two assassination attempts by unknown communist agents, fled South, lost his first wife to cancer, lost both his parents to air raids, and wound up fleeing the country leaving behind two sons whom he didn't see until they were adults.

He moved to Hong Kong, became a chef, had Jackie, moved to Australia, and wound up enjoying a fabulous retirement courtesy of his son, who made more money than he knew what to do with during his career. He passed away at the age of 93 from prostate cancer. Jackie was out of the country working when it happened.

The half death mentioned above is that of Lydia Shum or, as she's known in Hong Kong, Fei Fei. The portly television actress died last week and the outpouring of sentiment has been pretty remarkable, although given that she's been a permanent part of the Hong Kong TV landscape almost from the time Hong Kong first had TV, maybe it's not so surprising, after all. Vancouver has declared Fei Fei Day to pay tribute to the actress (June 1, 2008), a memorial tribute concert will be held at the Hong Kong Coliseum on March 2 and the Hong Kong Film Archive will hold a retrospective of her movies from March 7 - 16 and they're going all the way back to movies she made as a teenager like DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER (1962) and TEDDY GIRLS (1969).

But since China and Hong Kong have declared that they won't give any posthumous honors to Fei Fei, we'll let the mayor of Vancouver, who is honoring her with her very own day, have the last word:

"Her generosity and commitment to supporting community causes has set an example for all of us. More than the dark-rimmed glasses and trendy hairstyles, we will remember and celebrate her warm heart and wonderfully good humor."

I'd argue that "trendy" might not be the best word to describe her hair, but otherwise that's as fitting a tribute to her as I can find.

(Read the comprehensive Wikipedia article on Charles Chan)

(And here's Wikipedia on Fei Fei, also pretty comprehensive)