H1N1? Nah, we’re Michael Jackson fans. Hee-hee!

Well, a lot of Hong Kong-related news has gone down during my visit in Singapore. The big story hitting the papers recently is the fact that Andy Lau is married. Apparently, he’s been dating Carol Chu secretly for 24(!) years, but it turns out they actually got hitched in Las Vegas on June 23, 2008. I guess it’s a big deal because of the very looooooooooooong engagement, plus the fact that Andy promised his fans he’d announce his marriage as soon as it happened.

After being publicly revealed as a married man, Andy’s been apologetic on that front, while the media has continued to froth at the mouth, trying to out Andy’s “secret kids” (apparently, they’re just relatives) and putting forth various theories as to a) why it took so long for Andy Lau to get married and b) why he kept it a secret at all. As someone who’s no stranger to celebrity weddings, I’ll offer my two cents on the various “theories” that were initially making the rounds:

1) Keeping Up the Illusion

First off, there’s the idea that Andy felt he needed to appear single so he could retain his large fanbase. I sincerely doubt a 48-year old Heavenly King could really be that vain or insecure, but I suppose it’s possible. But do fans really think like this? Are they that mercurial? Let me say this — if your interest in an actor/singer ends the moment he/she gets married because you need to believe that someday you might have a chance to hook up with said celebrity, you are serious deluded. Come down off that cloud, ok?

2) Dead Fans

The second bit of speculation involves Andy being afraid that some of his fans would go ballistic at discovering that he’s officially “off the market” and kill themselves in a fit of depression. Although it’s been reported that the gals in the official Andy Lau fan club are well aware of his relationship with Carol Chu and only wish him the best, sadly, the idea that a fan would kill him or herself over something like this is not a totally “out there” fear. As Jackie Chan found out when one women committed sucide (another made a failed attempt) upon learning of his marital status, and as Andy Lau himself found out in a bizarre incident involving the father of one of his more overzealous fans, there are a lot of unstable people out there. My totally unsympathetic opinion on the matter can be best expressed by Captain James T. Kirk.

3) The Right to Privacy

The third bit of reasoning is that they hadn’t gotten married/kept it a secret because Andy wanted to insure Carol Chu’s privacy. I’m not familiar with the HK media, but I’m not sure how being the “not-so-secret girlfriend” of Andy Lau insures her privacy, but whatever.

Of course, in all the articles I read in which the journalists basically call Andy Lau a dick for not getting married sooner, nobody seems to wonder if, y’know, getting married isn’t that big deal for Carol Chu. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but it’s interesting to see how each writers’ assumptions about marriage and what it means to be married seep out in all these tabloid articles. I know this is hard for some people to imagine — but you don’t have to get married to a) love someone and b) be serious about a long-term committed relationship.

But it’s a moot point. Apparently, they got married because Andy and Carol want a kid by artificial insemination, which is only legally available to married folks in Hong Kong. So I guess that’s that.

I don’t really have anything else to say about it, except congrats to them and good luck on conceiving. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Fo’ realz?

But Andy Lau wasn’t the only one making news. In the media’s fervent attempt to find out the truth about his maritial status, they uncovered a lot of other secret Vegas weddings. The two big surprises were Miriam Yeung & PR exec Gary “Real” Ting (I kid you not) and Leon Lai & Gaile Lok. And that’s not all: it turns out that Vegas is the go-to place for HK weddings with couples like Liza Wang and Law Kar Ying [link updated]; Lau Ching-Wan and Amy Kwok; and Run Run Shaw & Mona Fong all tying the knot in Sin City. Hell, while we’re at it, I bet Ekin Cheng and his Gorgeous Locks got drunk and went to the Chapel O’Love during their last visit to Nevada.

At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Hong Kong remake of Honeymoon in Vegas in theatres just in time for the next Lunar New Year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 9:52 am and is filed under Law Kar-Ying, Miriam Yeung, Leon Lai, Marriage, Andy Lau. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.