Chow Yun-fat is Hong Kong’s favorite nice guy.
He’s starred in some of your favorite action films like Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow; he cleans up debris blocking the roads during a typhoon; and when asked how he feels about being banned from the Mainland after supporting the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests he responded “then I’ll just make less!”
He’s even affectionately known here as “Fat Gor,” which literally translates to “Brother Fat.”
But as the saying goes, “behind every great man is a great woman,” and the great woman behind Chow is Jasmine Tan. Very little is known about the 57-year-old Singaporean, Chow’s wife of 31 years. That changed this week when Apple Daily posted the first episode of a 15-part tell-all interview series with Tan called My Husband is Brother Fat. That’s right, 15 parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqh7cZ2GWeU
In the first episode, Tan tells the newspaper of the heartbreak of losing their first child. In 1991, it was announced that Chow and Tan would be expecting their first child, a baby girl. One week before the child was due, Tan noticed something odd.
“I went to my husband ‘how comes our daughter hasn’t kicked today? She’s being so well-behaved’,” she said.
A day later, she told the newspaper, she remembered walking through heavy rain and wading through water that was knee-deep to see the doctor, who then sent the couple to the hospital. The doctor told the couple her unborn baby had died due to strangulation from the umbilical cord, and suggested performing a caesarian surgery.
“I said no matter what, I want to go through with a natural birth because I carried her for so long.
“I don’t know why, but at the time I did not cry. All I could think about was one thing: Why me? Why did this happen to me? I wanted this daughter for so long, even to this day I still think about our daughter.”
She told the newspaper that she and Chow had prepared the nursery, and every time she passed it she would break down in tears. Tan tearfully revealed that it took her seven years to recover from the miscarriage, and the couple decided not to have children following the traumatic incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2XnqtyHdrE
Tan said Chow took her on a trip away from Hong Kong to recover from the miscarriage, because at the time, a lot of journalists stood vigil outside their home and she was asked about the incident everywhere she went.
Tan said after the death of their daughter, she channeled her energy into charity and giving back to the community. She said: “My daughter has died, the love that I have for her is not something I can give. But it is something I can give to others.”
The third installment of the interview series is considerably more cheerful, with Tan revealing how Chow wooed her. The pair met for the first time at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore through a friend in the ’80s. After returning to Hong Kong, Chow began to send postcards to Tan every day, and even called her two to three times a day. “It’s crazy isn’t it?” laughs Tan.
In a tease for the next episode, Tan said Chow told her when they were dating: “You need to understand I won’t propose.” The pair married in 1986. Looks like we’ll have to stay tuned to see what changed his mind.
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