Jackie's Family History

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the family history I suggest you find a copy of 'Traces of a Dragon' - the documentary Jackie made of his famiy history. There is also a fairly comprehensive background on Wikipedia HERE.

I suggest you read both articles at the links before reading this because I'm not going to repeat all the information available there.

To fill in the gaps:

Jackie's father always kept his past secret from Jackie only revealing it to him after his mother died in 2001. As a result of those revelations Jackie had "Traces of a Dragon" made to document the family history. After reuniting with his sons Charles made several trips to China to visit with family, on one occasion attending a wedding, but continued to keep that part of his life separate from Jackie telling both sides not to contact the other. Another thing that Charles did was pay for the Fang Ancestral Hall to be restored. In traditional Chinese culture the Ancestral Hall was the family record room, where births, deaths, marriages etc were recorded in the family book and the ancestral tablets were stored. Jackie's birth was recorded in the family book and his given name as 'Fang Si Long'. Jackie makes mention of this in the revised edition of his autobiography "I am Jackie Chan: My Life In Action" Jackie has never officially changed his name to "Fang" although Jaycee did in 2005. (Jaycee is a nickname - his full name is Fang Zu Ming.)

When Charles died in 2008 there was some media attention on the fact that his sons did not attend his funeral, however the truth is that they were invited but were unable to travel and Jackie sent staff to Anhui to hold a memorial service with them. They then lost contact with Jackie because the only telephone number they had (presumably for Charles) was disconnected. Several attempts were made by various press and television programs to bring about a re-union between the brothers, but wisely Jackie didn't choose to involve the press in family business. So it was that it was only this past weekend that Jackie was able to travel to the family home in Anhui, pay his respects at the Ancestral Hall and visit with the family. The few local media representatives who were there were asked to remain in a house away from the family and the family were asked not to say anything to the press. A very few photos of Jackie's arrival taken by locals who knew the family were released on Weibo.

Despite this a few family members did answer some questions about the visit. Shisheng said that he was happy that Jackie had come to meet the family. He also said that the dog, who barks at every one who visits, clearly recognised Jackie as a family member because it did not bark when he came to the house. An unidentified niece said that Jackie was very nice, and very humble, spoke good Mandarin, looked at the soup she was cooking, looked at the chickens and visited the Ancestral Hall.

Some other facts that have been revealed by this visit are that both brothers married and had several children who have married and have children of their own. All still live in Anhui.

SOURCE: SINA and WEIBO