1999 Beautiful Spring

The Unforgettable Shameless Act of “The Sun”

In April just after we have finished printing the photo book and were ready to hold the autograph events in Tokyo and Hong Kong, we were confronted with an unexpected and absurd incident. The book “All about Leslie” was supposed to be released on April 15th, so the books were delivered to the sales distributor agencies on April 12th. However 5 or 6 days prior to this date, the printing company had directly delivered 300 books to a bookstore in Hong Kong called “Page One” through the agent which is in charge of the delivery to foreign countries. The autograph event in Hong Kong would be held in this shop. At the same time several books were delivered to the book stores in Japanese department stores in Hong Kong, from which we had got the pre-order. We decided on this schedule because there were only 2 shipping services a week from Japan to Hong Kong which would take 10 days. We also took into consideration that it would require a longer time for the cargo of books to go through import declarations and custom clearances which are part of the procedures of book sale in a foreign country. Therefore we delivered the books to Hong Kong several days earlier than in Japan. It was decided that the date of the release of the book in Hong Kong was to be on April 23. According to our schedule, we would be able to clear customs in Hong Kong on the 21st with the books arriving in the book stores in Hong Kong in the afternoon of the 21st but to our big surprise, somehow one bookstore in Hong Kong started selling the book on April 8th.

Later according to our investigations we discovered that this bookstore was one of the Japanese bookstores in Hong Kong. They had got the books through the legal channel but the shop master really wanted to sell the book earlier than anywhere else, so they decided to get the books by air freight at their own expense. It was unimaginable to import the books by air freight and release them earlier than the scheduled date. Then an even more inconceivable incident happened. “The Sun”, a new newspaper group in Hong Kong , got hold of one book sold 2 weeks earlier than the actual release date. On the next day April 9th without prior permission they published the contents of the book with big colored pictures. They used more than 10 pictures and these were very new pictures taken from the book such as Leslie in bed, pictures of his childhood and so on. Furthermore they also reprinted excerpts from the article on my interview but when I read it carefully, I realized that although the context was similar but in truth it was a specious report focusing only on the part of Mr. Tong and changing the context.

For example, they wrote that Leslie said, “He is a lifelong lover” instead of my original text of “A lifelong friend”. The fact that they only highlighted the article about Mr. Tong from such a long context indicated clearly the ethics of this newspaper group. They ostensibly copied the article but in reality they had distorted the content. They had obtained the book before the official release date and published the pictures and article without prior consent from Leslie or our company. These actions were blatant violation of professional journalism and media ethics. I was more shocked than angry by the unbelievably shameful behaviour of this newspaper publication in Hong Kong in breaching their code of conduct without the slightest hesitation.

I received this news from Y, my friend in Hong Kong who worked for us as a contact with Leslie. She found the newspaper at the street vender’s stall on the morning of 9th. She was very surprised to see the strikingly colourful pictures of which she had been familiar with. She called me at once and sent a copy of the newspaper by facsimile. Thereupon I asked her to go to The Sun’s office immediately to demand an official apology. We didn’t have much expectations and the response we got was just as we had expected. They said, “What’s wrong with us? The mass media works on a ‘first come first served basis’!” The person who wrote the article was a young female reporter who didn’t even understand that it was an illegal deed. Y also accused her of distorting the original article to which she replied without any hesitation, “Well, the original article was not interesting enough. Newspapers with gossips from the entertainment world must be interesting in order to achieve good sales.” Y tried to negotiate with her boss but her efforts were only in vain.

Well, if they had thought it would be wrong, they would not have copied the book in the first place. So I realized that our expectation of their common sense was a fruitless effort. Anyway I was dumbfounded when I heard what they had said. There is a saying “There is honour even among thieves” but I don’t think they have any principles at all! Far from that it was just a terrible violation disguised as mass- media, which did nothing but caused grievous hurt to the persons concerned. Leslie had said to me before, “You don’t know anything about Hong Kong.
Japanese common sense doesn’t work here!!” I felt I had learned my lesson well. Undoubtedly in this incident Leslie himself was the main victim. I was extremely worried about him so I requested Y to go and see Leslie and comfort him as soon as possible. As I had expected because of this incident Leslie was shocked and very depressed. He said, “I won’t accept any Hong Kong media interviews from now on! I won’t do anything for them! I don’t want to do the autograph event in Hong Kong as they will make bad stories about it. I am going to cancel the events. I won’t do any events in Hong Kong any more. I hate this! I’ve had enough of this! I am fed up with them!” Then he repeated the words, “I am fed up with this”, and demanded to cancel the autograph events in Hong Kong although Y had tried to persuade him to have second thoughts with all her efforts.

Afterwards, when Leslie had calmed down a bit, we told him that this event was not for the media but for his fans in Hong Kong. He realized that it would be very disappointing for his innocent fans that had been looking forward to the event if he canceled it because of his anger against “The Sun”. He finally agreed to do the event as scheduled but Leslie insisted that the media should be not allowed into the event hall nor would he be giving any interviews at all. This also affected the autograph event in Tokyo. We had already given the permission to the TV stations, newspapers and magazine companies in Japan to have interviews. We could not renege on our promise so we decided on a compromise with a change in the schedule in which only 10 minutes of photo taking at the event hall would be permitted. Leslie would not be giving any interviews or press conferences.

Actually there was another reason why Leslie would not accept interviews or press conferences. Earlier when Leslie was in Japan several months for the promotion of the movie, “Moonlight Express” there had been a lot of gossips articles about his activities after work in the Hong Kong newspapers. One article reported that Leslie had tempted a casual passer-by and was kissing the young man somewhere on the street in Ginza. Before the incident of “The Sun”, Leslie had been harassed by reporters over this article. The more Leslie denied this, the more the media fabricated stories and then this article of “The Sun” followed. I could really understand his feelings and his desire not to respond to the media or provide any news items to them any more.
For 20 years Leslie must have provided innumerable news to the Hong Kong media. In terms of media contribution, it can be said that he ranked the best among all the stars. The relationship between the mass media and the entertainers is usually interdependent in order for both parties to reap mutual benefits in a coexistence and co-prosperity environment. However I have observed in this respect, Leslie and the media relations have completely lost this balance. In comparison to other Hong Kong stars that are sometimes praised yet slandered at other times, Leslie seemed to be on the receiving end for such slanders continuously. As a bystander I felt their gossips were filled with malicious intentions and no one else could have felt the bitterness more deeply than Leslie himself.

We managed to complete the autograph event smoothly, but the incident of “The Sun” was not only very unfair for Leslie but it also left us with the feeling of chagrin and anger. If this was the unethical attitude of the Hong Kong mass media and Japanese common sense did not apply there as they said, I would like to take the opportunity to expose this fact here in my book so as to let the readers of this book know of the events that took place. In spite of our request for an official apology, we have never received a reply or any form of apology from “The Sun”.
Furthermore, they shamelessly insisted that they should have the freedom of speech!!

The eve of the autograph event - The car chase from Narita Airport

On February 16th, the eve of the autograph event, Leslie flew into Narita Airport on a JAL flight which landed in the evening.

In hindsight I realized my misjudgment of the situation and with hardly any sense of apprehension I had underestimated the unexpected event that would happen at Narita. We had anticipated that there would be a little confusion upon Leslie’s arrival, but as it was only a short distance from the exit to the parking area, so we assumed it would be alright if we escorted Leslie quickly to the pick-up wagon.

I arrived at the airport one hour before his arrival. When I looked around the arrival hall, I discovered that there did not seem to be a big gathering of fans yet but for security reasons I made one of the staff go to the security section to arrange for some guards to be stationed at the exit just in case. However they said, “By the look of things around the lobby, the crowd is just the same as usual and it is unlikely that the numbers would increase a lot within an hour so it will not be necessary to station the guards.” Indeed at the time there were not as many people just like they had said but one thing made me rather uneasy and this was the sight of many women in the lobby area who were making phone calls to their friends on their hand-phones. Thirty minutes prior to Leslie’s arrival, we made sure that the pick-up wagon had already arrived at the parking area. Then we went back to the arrival hall but to our great surprise, a lot of people were jostling in the lobby though there were not so many people there one hour before. Almost all of them were females. There was a woman in front of us who were speaking loudly over her hand-phone. “Yes, that is right! Someone said that she got the information from a fan in Hong Kong that Leslie had definitely left Hong Kong by JAL at….He is about to arrive at Narita! Hurry up, hurry up!!” As the arrival of the plane approached, the crowd of women gathered in the arrival hall increased in numbers. Though the hall was packed, the people however were lining up in an orderly manner along the barricade of the exit passage so I thought we could still make our way to the car with the protection from the barricade.

As soon as Leslie appeared at the end of the arrival gate, the crowds let off a loud cheer. Leslie had his hair cut shorter compared to last February when we met him which made him looked much younger. He responded to the applause of his fans with his charming smile. As always standing in front of his fans, Leslie emanated a sparkling aura. Perhaps it was the consciousness that he was being watched and loved by a lot of people which made him so brilliantly attractive. I was waiting for him at the end of the barricade. Leslie said,” How are you?” and we shook hands. When we started walking, the situation changed dramatically. The fans who were standing along the barricade suddenly rushed towards us. We were being held up surrounded by a lot of people. Some fans rushed towards us to give presents to Leslie and some of them went as far as to touch Leslie’s body. Then the security guards who were standing at a distance watching us hurried over to help us pushed our way through the crowd to ensure our passage through.

We walk with hurried steps through the aisle whisking away the stretched out hands off and blinking our eyes at the camera flashes in front of us. We felt as if the way to the parking lot was like an endless journey. When we finally got into the car, Leslie drew a deep sigh of relief and took his seat but we could not start our car yet, as Mr. Tong, who came out a bit later than Leslie, still had not come to the car. Leslie looked out of the window anxiously asking,” Is he all right?” Just then we heard voices outside saying “Oh, he is Mr. Tong, isn’t he?” “Yes!! Mr. Tong!!” “Oh, really?” Under the covetous stares of the fans, Mr. Tong was slowly putting the baggage into the trunk of the car. Leslie yelled out from the car, “Hurry up!! Get in the car!” but Mr. Tong was doing his job at his own leisurely pace as usual. The fans seemed to be a bit hesitant to crowd around him for they were watching him from a distance. When Mr. Tong finally got in the car, Leslie heaved a sigh to relief and said, “OK, let’s go!”

In the car we were chattering amiably for a while but we felt something was wrong when we got off the superhighway to enter Tokyo. Two cars were following us all the way from Narita. The two cars were airport taxies and the passengers were all women. We went into a narrow alley and stopped the car so that we could see whether they were really following us. Then the two taxies stopped just behind our car. Their intention was so obvious that our driver murmured, “I cannot believe they used such a shallow trick to pursue us!” I asked him, “Can you shake them off?” he answered he would try his best. He then stepped on the accelerator and began to drive the car in a zigzag manner on the narrow street. At this point Leslie gradually became displeased and spoke less and less. Often Leslie’s good humour would quickly turned sour putting him in a bad mood whenever his cheerful and pleasant feelings were spoiled or interrupted unreasonably but I have never seen him in such a great fit of anger like this before. He was enraged at the cars pursuing us persistently. He also lost his temper at the driver who could not shake off the cars. Leslie in the rear seat was irritated and complained angrily, “What a pest they are!” “You have to do something about them, driver!!” Then I heard Mr. Tong trying to pacify Leslie saying, “Well, it cannot be helped. Don’t be so irritated!” The driver tried to do his best but there were 2 cars following us and when he made a dodge for one car, the other car was still tailgating us persistently. We were afraid that they might follow us to the hotel.

Finally we made a plan with the driver. He intentionally went into a narrow one-way street where only one car could go through. The two cars followed us one by one. Then our driver suddenly stopped the car and one of our staff got off. She blocked the other car’s way by standing in the middle of the street. She then shouted at the taxi driver and the female passengers inside the taxi. “Stop following us! It troubles us very much. If you don’t stop doing this, we will call the police!” All the women in the car lowered their faces and only the driver was smiling awkwardly in embarrassment. We saw our chance and immediately took advantage of this time to speed off in our car while our staff remained standing there for a while to prevent them from following us. Five minutes later she finally let them go but by then our car had disappeared from their sight completely.

We shook off the two taxies in this way and went back to our original route. When he knew there was no car chasing us, Leslie became cheerful again. His mood changed dramatically and he said with a gentle voice, “I feel sorry for her getting off the car in such a place! I wonder if she could come back easily…” Then he said innocently, “I feel hungry after getting mad! Let’s eat something!”

When I asked them what they wanted to eat, Mr. Tong answered, “Crab Tempura! (Deep-fried crabs)” It was already after 10 o’clock at night. One of the staff called some tempura restaurants on her hand phone but almost all the restaurants were about to close. I told Leslie there would be no tempura restaurant open. Then Leslie said, “Well then, let’s go to Izakaya! (Japanese pub)” I am not familiar with the high-class restaurants, but I do know a lot of Izakaya instead. Considering that it was difficult to find parking space and that they might notice Leslie if we went to the busy quarters, I chose a shop near my office where I patronized often. The clerks and the guests at the shop did not recognize Leslie. Nobody even noticed that he was from Hong Kong. Leslie seemed to be fond of this small Izakaya very much. He said many times, “This is a very nice shop! I like a shop like this!” He drank sake (Japanese rice wine) out of a masu (a square wooden box) very well and ate Yakitori (Japanese style grilled chicken) and so on. Leslie was completely relaxed.

Leslie had a tendency to lose his temper easily but snapping out of a bad mood quickly was also his biggest strong point for he soon become cheerful again. He knew himself very well so whenever he was confronted with something unpleasant he would reflect on his favorite things for a change in an effort to calm down his own emotions but sometimes I could see he tried too hard to make himself merry yet his efforts seemed only in vain. On these occasions it was sometimes too painful for me to see such a Leslie.

Leslie was exhausted after signing 1000 autographs

While we were trying to shake off the 2 pursuing cars, there was another battle raging between fans and the guards as well as the clerks of the book store in the Tokyo International Forum, where the autograph event was to be held. Some fans had been trying to form queues in a haphazard manner in front of the book store named Yaesu Book Centre in Tokyo Forum for a few days. Each time they attempted to queue up, the authorities dispersed them by saying “Please line up at 5 o’clock in the morning of the event day! It is not allowed to queue up here until then.” However we could not stop them anymore on the day prior to the event. We didn’t let them know where to line up so some fans began to form lines all over the place again. Some groups even tried to merge several queues into one. On the other hand the guards in Tokyo forum warned and prevented them from lining up. Our staff and the book shop clerks were also persuading them to disperse the queues. This resulted in several frictions here and there for a long time.

Being an official facility, the security is very tight at the Tokyo International Forum. It is closed to the public at night time so the people who had been queuing there were told to leave the premises at night but nobody wanted to go home. Instead they just moved out of the site and stood on the street. The guards and our staff could not force them to go away. To avoid shouldering the consequences should there be any trouble during the night, we asked the Tokyo Forum authorities for the use of their restrooms only. We promised that our staff would organize the people to queue there safely for the whole night. During the night, the queue kept getting longer.

The ringing of my hand phone woke me up at 6 o’clock the next morning. It was a call from one of our staff in Tokyo Forum. He said, “The number of people has reached 1000 and the Forum has just opened now, so we are going to lead them to the venue.” When I imagined the exciting scene of one thousand fans who had gathered from all over Japan filling up the courtyard of The Tokyo Forum just wanting to see Leslie I said to myself, “It will be a tough day today!!”

At 10 am on April 17th I had breakfast with Leslie at the Four Seasons Hotel coffee shop on the first floor. Leslie said that he would like to be seated at the terrace facing the garden and he began to take photos of the garden, terrace and the coffee shop with his camera. He asked me, “How is Tokyo Forum?” and I answered “I heard the number of people has already reached 1000 at 6 o’clock this morning.” Then he murmured, “Oh, is that so…” and he wrote his signature in the air as if confirming once more what he was going to do. Watching his movement, I wonder if he was having doubts about his own stamina so I asked him, “Is it really all right with you to pen 1000 signatures?” He said, “I woke up early this morning and had a good workout at the gym so my condition is perfect. Don’t worry!”

“By the way…” I asked him another question which had been on my mind since the previous night. “How do you like this hotel?” Then he whispered in my ear, “Well, the room in this hotel is too luxurious for me. I am a bit overwhelmed but…” He pondered for a while and began to spill forth a continuous flow of words saying, “The amenities are excellent. The bathroom is very good and the shower head is working well. The tap (faucet) is well positioned. If there is any shortcoming that can be said about this hotel, it would be the towels. I would like the towels to be a bit softer and smoother…” I was absolutely amazed as I gazed at the quick movements of his lips as he uttered these words!

The autograph event was held in the Glass Hall of The Tokyo Forum. We divided the crowd of 1000 people into 3 groups; each group numbering about 330 people. The event was held in 3 sessions with a break in between each session. When we arrived at The Forum, I asked Leslie if he would like to see the event hall beforehand. He replied, “No, I won’t.” The reason was because he also wanted to feel the excitement together with his fans.

I still sometimes remember the special atmosphere of that moment when Leslie showed up in front of the 350 fans that were waiting for him in breathless anticipation. This scene was beyond description. The atmosphere was not the same as when he appeared on the stage at his concerts. The room was filled with an indescribable mood and sound. The sound was likened to that of a hundred people letting out a sigh together after holding their breath for a long time. It was like a balloon filled with the joy and anticipation from each one of them who was about to meet Leslie in person soon!

Leslie looked tense for a second; maybe because he felt the extraordinary atmosphere in the room. I felt he was a bit nervous. He was supposed to make a speech in front of the fans before the event. He had decided to do it in Japanese and had learned the Japanese words beforehand but he ended up making only a short greeting in the room. I am not sure whether it was because he was too nervous or he had just changed his mind. Anyway I was peeping at him from behind the screen and I could sense his tenseness clearly. It also made me jittery and my body was quivering from nervousness.

There is a conference room under the Glass Hall and we had hired the room as a waiting room. During the interval (it was also the time for the changeover of the next group of people in the room), Leslie came back to the room via the rear stairs. During the first interval, Leslie was very cheerful. He was eating snacks and fruits on the table, drinking coffee, chatting and laughing a lot. He then sat on the floor and began to do many kinds of stretching exercises such as bending forward with his legs apart, stretching his body with his hands held up high to his head, or turning his neck. He was also reading fan letters written in English or Cantonese. When the signal for the start of the second session came from the event hall, he stood up saying “OK!!” and ran upstairs with dancing steps.

At the second break, he looked a bit tired. He seldom spoke and ate nothing. He said that he was afraid he might become sleepy if he had a full stomach but he was still reading fan mail. Beside Leslie, the staff was picking out the photos and postcards that had been put into the envelopes by fans who wanted Leslie to autograph them later. While reading the letters, Leslie sometimes asked me some questions such as “What kind of person is the actress named xxx?” “In this letter, she wanted me to play the role of Hikaru Genji, and what kind of role is it?” “What kind of magazine is xxx?” and so on. To my surprise, Leslie would read fan letters very carefully and always tried to find out what his fans were asking of him. I liked his attitude very much and watched him with admiration. I wondered whether the fans knew that Leslie read their letters very carefully and thought they would be very happy if they knew about this fact.

In our schedule, Leslie was supposed to attend a photo exhibition after the autograph event. If Leslie had showed up unexpectedly, it would be a great surprise for the fans there. We didn’t announce it beforehand as we wanted it to be a happy surprise and also we were afraid of the confusion it would cause. Later, our decision turned out to be right anyway. Leslie kept signing his autograph with a smile till the end of the event. He then left the hall waving his hand to the applause of all of the fans but as soon as he came into the waiting room, Leslie collapsed onto a chair. He didn’t move but wearily he leaned on the back of the chair for a while. When the staff thanked him for his strenuous effort, he responded with a tired blink of his eyes. He looked totally exhausted. I thought it would be difficult for him to attend the photo exhibition, but anyway I asked him, “Leslie, how about the photo exhibition? Will you go?” His reply was in the negative as I had expected. He said, “I want to go back to the hotel, right now!” Though I would like to accompany him back to the hotel by the pick up wagon, but I still had a lot of things to do at the venue so I told Leslie that I would come later and saw him off.

Two hours later I rushed to his hotel but he was not in his room. I was worried that he might be feeling sick from overworked, but it seemed he had gone to the gym. Within ten minutes Leslie and Mr. Tong came back from the gym to his room. Perhaps he had a good exercise and got a massage as well for his condition had recovered and he had regained his cheerfulness. He looked totally different from two hours before. I felt relieved and said, “You are hungry, aren’t you? Let’s have a bite to eat! ” Mr. Tong immediately said, “Well then, crab tempura!!” Usually Mr. Tong is a health-conscious person and he seldom drank alcohol, but somehow he really loved tempura. Whenever Mr. Tong mentioned ‘tempura’, Leslie would smile and say teasingly, “You are really crazy about tempura!” I made a reservation at one of the oldest tempura restaurant in Ginza and we went there by taxi. Mr. Tong said he thought he had been to this restaurant before. As for Leslie, it was his first time at the restaurant. Mr. Tong knew a lot about Japan since he had visited Tokyo many times with his family or friends. He was much more familiar with Tokyo than Leslie.