To be a Fan: Bewitched by the Beauty and Talent of Leslie Cheung

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The ultimate purpose of my trip to Hong Kong was to participate in the commemoration activities for Leslie Cheung on April first, the seventh anniversary of his death.  On the surface this seems innocent enough, but upon even cursory reflection the question must be raised, why Leslie Cheung, and why now at this time in my life?

Three years ago I had never heard of Leslie Cheung and yet here I was in 2010 making what looked very much like a pilgrimage to Hong Kong to make offerings at sites associated with Leslie’s life and death.  When I was interviewed by Dick Gordon in November 2009, he had the same question:  why Leslie Cheung?  Truly, I had no ready answer then.  I wonder if I do now, after pondering this question seriously for the past five months.  What is it about Leslie Cheung that drew me to him and made me a fan when I had never been a fan of any performer for the first 49 years of my life?

I think if Leslie had only been an actor, I might not have been so easily captivated and enchanted by him. Although I admire film as an art form (or at least as a mostly high class entertainment with a few examples of sheer artistry scattered throughout its history to show that it is capable of true artistry), that is not the art that captures my imagination and inspires me with passion. For me, music has always been the art form I connect with most strongly. Perhaps it is the vibrational quality of music that communicates on a deeper level and the infinitely rich expressiveness of the human voice that is key here. Rhythm is also important, as, in the case of Leslie, is movement. He combined music and voice, rhythm and movement in live performance in ways that I find utterly mesmerizing. His ability to reach out to and engage a live audience is quite extraordinary. His emotional honesty on stage, his courage in laying himself bare before his fans combined with the high quality of his artistic expression delights my heart in ways no other performer ever has.

Once I saw Leslie in the Passion Tour, even on YouTube with low resolution files of only 6 or 7 minutes duration, watching with bleary eyes on my old monitor late into the night, my heart was shaken and I was totally his.  Like so many fans before me, I surrendered to this man who so perfectly embodied beauty, music, dance, emotional bravery and love. Together in one person the combination was irresistible. There was also a slight air of vulnerability that Leslie never tried to hide, which sealed the deal. Once you have fallen under Leslie’s spell, I wonder if you ever “recover”?

This love affair began on the strength of a few clips on YouTube and was sealed by a performance in Farewell, My Concubine.  The urge, at least for me, was to want to know everything about this man and how he had come to make such exquisite art.  Turning to his on-line biographies, I made the terrible discovery that Leslie had taken his own life on April 1, 2003.  Depression was cited, but there were other theories, as well.  The degree of disbelief was palpable in the things fans wrote in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.  I, too, was grief-stricken just reading about these sad events for the simple reason that I had discovered this incredible performer too late.  His career was now etched in stone.  He had accomplished everything that he ever would.  The only way I could know him was through his performances that were recorded on CD and DVD.  There would never be anything else.  I would only experience Leslie in the past tense and never would there be the anticipation of what he would do next.  Still, I was not deterred.  When you have given your heart to someone, even though they are dead, there really is no taking it back.  But I am in that group of fans known by the rather sad label of “post fans”, referring to those who became fans after Leslie’s death.  Until this trip to Hong Kong, I didn’t really know this term.  It felt a little sad to be called a “post fan”, because that meant that I had no direct knowledge of Leslie, that I was only the recipient of Leslie lore through the agency of others.  I would never know Leslie except through his past performances or through the recollections of those who had been his fans while he had been alive. 

This concept of falling in love with someone after their death and the strength of that love overcoming even death itself is, in fact, the plot of one of Chinese opera’s most famous works: .  I only discovered this fact upon my purchase of a DVD of this work while in Hong Kong.  The heroine dies early on in the opera, but not before she paints a self-portrait.  The hero comes upon the self-portrait after her death and falls in love with the woman depicted in that painting, even though she is already dead.  On the strength of his love, the young woman is, in fact, revived and returns from the land of the dead and, after many vicissitudes, comes to be reunited and live happily ever after with her faithful lover.  How fitting that the post-fan’s love of Leslie should make him live on in new hearts and in this way vanquish death.  I am living proof of not only the strength but also the reach of this “post” phenomenon.

On the strength of my love for Leslie I, like so many other fans, have spent hundreds (thousands?) of dollars purchasing every DVD and CD that is available featuring Leslie.  I have bought books of his photos and even a scholarly study of him written in Chinese (which I don’t read)!  Two years ago I began teaching myself Cantonese and also plan to learn to read and write Chinese in the coming years, all to unlock more of the information about Leslie that is available only in Chinese.  I study his films and his stage performances with rapt attention and even write poems and blogs exploring aspects of Leslie and the thoughts and feelings that he provokes in me even so many years after his death.

There is something of the true “idol” about Leslie.  He embodies parts of myself in a more perfect way than I can ever hope to attain.  He is more beautiful, more talented, more refined, and more vulnerable than I could ever be.  Yet he was humble about his gifts and accomplishments, wishing to place the needs of others before his own.  But in the end this was not enough, and the life of this exquisite, accomplished man who was passionately loved by so many ended in the tragedy of depression and suicide.  It is as if the world could not support such perfection.  But the irony is that Leslie’s fan base continues to grow and expand.  There are more and more fans from the Mainland every year, and a good number of them are quite young.  They are integrating Leslie into Mainland popular culture in a way that Leslie might have wished for during his lifetimes, but didn’t have sufficient time to achieve.  Leslie was a pioneer in making movies on the Mainland before any other Hong Kong actor and was the first Cantopop star to tour the Mainland as well.  The response from Chinese fans, especially to his Passion Tour, was far beyond what anyone had envisioned, and that enthusiasm has only continued to grow.

Beyond Asia and Asians living abroad, Leslie has managed to garner an ever increasing fan base.  I am living proof of that.  When I was in Hong Kong, I heard of non-Asian fans from Great Britain and France.  I know of fans from Italy, Germany, Poland and Turkey.  Oddly enough, while there may be non-Asian Leslie fans in North America, I don’t know any.  All of the North American fans I know are ethnic Chinese. 

Post-fans often have a different passionate attachment to Leslie than those who became fans while Leslie was alive.  We can be attracted by outward appearances, but what holds us in Leslie’s sway are the inner qualities that he manifested over and over again throughout his life and career.  Leslie’s artistic integrity and his quest for ever greater artistic perfection, his generosity both as an artist and as a human-being, his enduring love for his partner, his deep and long-lasting friendships, all of these things set Leslie apart from other entertainers and most of the people that we come across in the course of our lives.  There was a beautiful innocence about him, something untouched and childlike that engaged the world without constraint and totally unselfconsciously.  He was totally aware of his talent and abilities, yet was able to connect with anyone, whatever their station in life. He was loved by millions, yet his hunger for love could never be satisfied. He was a self-made creation, yet relied on the approval of others to know that what he had created was good. When his ability to generate himself from nothing failed, as it apparently did in his final years though a series of professional and personal misfortunes, that confidence and belief in himself was shaken. In those final months in the grip of depression, Leslie lost his savor for life and so, rather than live on in desperation or despair, he made the most difficult choice of his life and chose to end it all in one final dramatic action.

This description delineates the outer contours of my experience of Leslie, but what of the inner experience?  Leslie has inspired many poems, reflections, essays, friendships and now a trip halfway around the world.  Perhaps because Leslie himself is no longer directly accessible, the need to connect with other fans has increased.  Wherever fans gather and share their experience of Leslie with one another, you get the very strong impression that his presence lives in those shared conversations, emotions and friendships.  When you meet with another Leslie fan, you feel like you have known one another for a long time:  there is no awkwardness, no need to make small talk or get acquainted.  When two or more fans meet, the topic of conversation turns completely naturally to Leslie, whether we are sharing anecdotes from his life, his performances or past commemorations.  Although the specific things that we love about Leslie vary to some degree, I have also found a fairly consistent core of Leslie’s personality traits that we admire and events from his life that inspire us.  For some the experience can be very deep.  I have heard tales of people meeting Leslie in their dreams.  I, too, have experienced this.  After leaving Hong Kong, I have dreamt of the city and many of the friends I made there night after night for months.  At times these dreams are infinitely more real than my waking experiences.  After this trip not only have I come to experience Leslie in a deeper and more profound way, but I also now have this city,city, inside of me, filling me with its spirit and expressing itself in my dreams.  While discovering Leslie may have altered the trajectory of my life from what anyone could have predicted, visiting Hong Kong and having the full fan experience has changed something deep within me in yet other ways that I could never have anticipated.  If anyone had told me three years ago that my encounter with the posthumous portrait of this beautiful man would have changed my life to such a degree, I would never have believed them.  Leslie himself said that he didn’t believe in fate, but what other explanation could there be for this life-transforming love affair with the spirit and artistic soul of a human-being who continues to reach out to individuals around the world despite the fact that his physical existence ended more than seven years ago? 

Perhaps every post-fan’s experience is some variation on my own. My impression from conversations with a number of post-fans is that this is the case. Yet each of us has an experience of Leslie and his artistic legacy as personal as our own histories and personalities. Each fan has their particular favorites in terms of songs, stage appearances and movie roles. The quickest way to get a multifaceted experience of Leslie is to gather together a group of fans and have them talk about Leslie. So many aspects of Leslie are revealed in these conversations. It is as if Leslie has imprinted something unique in the heart of each fan, ensuring that this aspect of him lives on through that individual’s experience. It is as though Leslie’s art and his imprint on the world are now refracted and dispersed via the personalities and experiences of his fans, giving him a reach even greater, though perhaps more diffuse, than what he had while he was alive. Perhaps we no longer can harness the power of all consuming and perfect love to resuscitate the dead, like the young lover in.  But to be a fan means a spark of the one you admire and love lives on in the world despite their final departure from the stage of life.  To be a fan is to tap into a special power that resembles magic to the uninitiated, and perhaps is the same power that drives us to believe in fairy tales and happily-ever-afters.  This is still our world, only viewed with the unclouded eyes of a child for whom the world is a place filled with wonder and anything is possible so long as you simply believe.

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