The media have had a field day with the post-divorce mud-slinging that occurred online between Taiwanese-American singer-songwriter Wang Leehom (王力宏) and his ex-wife, Lee Jing-lei (李靚蕾).
Wang on Monday last week posted an apology on Facebook, saying that he would take a break from the entertainment industry to make up for lost time with his parents and children.
He said that he would transfer to Lee the deeds of her residence, as well as share the responsibility of providing for their children’s education and future expenses.
Lee showed her goodwill by not taking legal action, after Wang and his father accused her of “trapping Wang into a marriage with her pregnancy,” thereby putting a temporary end to the saga.
POLITICAL INCIDENT
Such melodramatic scandals are typically only fit for a little gossip over tea, but this divorce saga has been turned into a political incident.
Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡錫進), going back on his usual stance of “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China,” proclaimed that Wang is not Chinese, but a “Taiwanese-American.”
“The scandal should have been strictly Taiwan’s business. However, even the referendum that took place today was rumored to be overshadowed by it. I expect it is going to cause further uproar in Taiwan and the US,” Hu wrote on Sina Weibo on Dec. 18, the day Taiwanese voted on four national referendums.
Apparently, Hu was willing to advocate for Taiwanese independence if it meant that China could sever all ties with the tainted celebrity.
JAPAN BID
In a Facebook post the next evening, Wang deliberately called Lee by her Japanese name, Nishiharu Michiko, in the hope of stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment among his Chinese fanbase.
However, the act backfired, drawing a landslide of criticism of Wang from Internet users in China.
The most preposterous thing was that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) pinned the blame for the four failed referendums on Wang.
This only proves to Taiwanese that certain people in China form a confederacy of dunces who get cocky when things are in their favor, but start being smart-asses who play dirty political tricks when things go wrong — and end up shooting themselves in the foot.
In stark contrast, Taiwanese-Japanese Lee has been laying bare the truth behind the hypocritical images and lies made up by Wang and his father in a series of exposes.
The evidence Lee has provided in her posts was apparently the result of years of meticulous accumulation, rendering each piece a fatal blow to the enemy.
SHOGUN
This move is not unlike the 17th-century shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who is famous for uniting Japan in the Sengoku period by biding his time to make the perfect strike when the odds were against him.
It is no wonder that Internet users were staying up late for the latest follow-up in this David-versus-Goliath battle between Lee and Wang.
Although this reality show has for the time being come to an end, besides finally getting to know “all the things we never knew” about Wang, to borrow a line from one of his own songs, the public has learned a lesson: Only by imitating Lee’s forbearance and tolerance, like Ieyasu, can we deliver the fatal blow when the time is ripe.
John Yu is a civil servant.
Translated by Rita Wang
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