At my friend’s uncle’s wake, a sobbing woman showed up with kids in tow.
Everyone was shocked.
My friend’s uncle was one of those old-time towkays who would leave his house in the morning in a chauffeured-driven sedan and return home in the early evening in the same manner.
He was a most respectable and respected businessman, a pillar of the community, regarded as a custodian of community morals and standards.
So at his wake everyone was shocked when a second, hidden family showed up to bid farewell.
When and how did the old son of a bitch raise a separate, second family all this while?
Is this highly regarded businessman really a buaya, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, afterall?
How did he pull it off especially when his daily routine has never changed for god knows how many years?
Ah I suppose we men have our ways.
Of course some don’t have to hide anything – Macau’s Stanley Ho, 87, has four wives and 17 kids – the youngest is only nine – and he flaunts that fact openly, nevermind the fact that polygamy is illegal even if he “owns” Macau. He also seems rather proud that he fathered half of his 17 kids after he has turned 70.
When I read on Sunday about Andy Lau’s hidden family in Malaysia I was not surprised.
When news broke, a lot of people were shocked.
But hidden families are nothing new.
For the longest time Jacky Chan refused to acknowledge that he has married the saccharin-sweet actress Lin Feng Chiao, and fathered Jaycee Chan, the budding actor.
In the latest episode, it was rumored that Andy Lau has been “married” for some 24 years with a Malaysian “beauty queen” named Carol Chu who even bore him two kids. (Apparently in the 90s they legally registered their union as a marriage in Canada.) Last Saturday Lau attended the woman’s father’s funeral in Malaysia and was spotted.
But for his career’s sake – apparently fans can abandon a celebrity heart throb if they realize that he’s married – Lau has refused to acknowledge that he is a married man.
I’m not sure what to make of Lau’s behavior.
I mean if I love someone I’d marry her and tell the whole world that I’ve married the most wonderful woman in the world.
Unless she’s a Miss Butterface.
Butterface = everything’s about her is hot but her face.
Even if she’s a Miss Butterface, if you love her, you love her unconditionally – regardless of how she looks – and you’ll be proud of her, and want the rest of the world to know what a lucky bastard you are.
But hiding your wife – and kids – and pretending that they don’t exist?
I don’t know what kind of a man you are, really.