XVIII From Jackie Chan to Will Smith
On celebrity, image, and silence
The reason I write this is closely connected to the reason I left China.
Chinese culture can produce figures like Jackie Chan — talented, charismatic, admired across the world.
Yet behind that global admiration lies a more complicated reality.
Jackie Chan’s private life has long been marked by controversy: a strained relationship with his son, the disappearance of his wife — once a celebrated Taiwanese actress — from public life, and the abandonment of a daughter who later struggled publicly.
At the same time, his career remained untouched.
He continued to be celebrated by the global film industry.
For many years I believed this contradiction existed because the outside world did not fully understand Chinese society.
China often appears to the world through carefully filtered images: martial arts, discipline, economic growth, cultural heritage.
Less visible are the mechanisms that structure everyday life.
Public speech, media, publishing, and digital communication remain closely regulated.
Even mobility itself can depend on political discretion.
Passports can be revoked.
Travel can be restricted.
The individual always exists within a larger administrative framework.
When I first lived in the West, I believed Western societies operated according to fundamentally different principles.
Freedom of speech appeared central.
Public criticism seemed normal.
I believed this environment might be closer to human dignity.
Perhaps I was naive.
Then I watched Will Smith slap a comedian during the Academy Awards ceremony.
What struck me was not only the act itself.
It was the silence that followed.
No one intervened.
The ceremony continued.
Later that same evening, Will Smith received the Oscar for Best Actor and was greeted with a standing ovation.
The system continued to celebrate him.
For me, the moment was unsettling.
The pattern I thought I had left behind appeared again, in a different form.
China created Jackie Chan.
Hollywood created Will Smith.
Different systems.
Yet sometimes similar tolerances.
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