Jackie Chan: Never grow up

Jackie chan: Never Grow Up

With Zhu Mo

Translated by Jeremy Tiang

Gallery Books 2015

2018 Hardbound cover

I'm so happy to have gotten hold of Jackie Chan's autobiography. I had so much fun reading it. As a child, I watched The Drunken Master with my siblings and enjoyed it very much. All his succeeding movies that we watched were all heartwarming, fun and we enjoyed the behind-the-scene cuts at the end of the credits.

I laughed a lot and cried some. There were portions of his storytelling that I cried, like when he was left to the China Drama Academy at age 7 and his mother carried bucket of hotwater from home to the academy and on the 2nd year, he was teased as spolied and rejected his mother to impress or be acceptable as cool to his peers in the academy. His mother has to ride buses and walk many times to bring the water with her. I think he has been like that to the women in his life, a macho who wants to show off to his peers. I can't blame a child who literally grew up among his peers in a bootcamp. 

In the end, it is how we make amends with our past and I think Jackie Chan has been doing this. I am not in the position to judge him. But I believe his autobiography is about being human which is synonymous to imperfection, to mistakes, to making amends, to doing good, to leaving a good deed

Of course, I laughed hard on his antics, especially when he had to dump in the middle of the night holding a rifle in case a leopard appears and a flashlight with a cow near him. This was when he was filming in a place near Johannesburg. 

I imagine that Jackie Chan is an animator when he's telling stories or jokes. 

I photographed some portions I wished i underlined if a highlighter is just beside me: 

I also grimaced. He enumerated his body parts and what happened to them. I can't help but grimace, especially when he broke his neck. His son Jaycee and wife Joan Lin were crying because of what he was doing to himself on the set. 

I don't want to speak ill of him because of his youthful mistakes. I just admired Jackie Chan in the end for what he was doing now. Uncultured (if that is a correct term to ise) he may be but he tried his best and he did a good job in contributing to the cultural heritage. He donated four old chinese house structures to Singapore and his movie Chinese Zodiac made Francois Pinault returned to China the rabbit and rat which he bought at an auction in Paris for 29M dollars but
 were historically looted from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing.

Lastly, all I wanted to meet is Joan Lin and not Jackie Chan, and ask her how she lived to love an off-movie Jackie Chan, a self-confessed terrible boyfriend. Well, I believe she's an independent woman of her own means and understanding, and can perfectly love an imperfect human being.