possessed many material things, but I craved a normal life at the same time. I was out on the road for long periods of time and sometimes worked long hours. There wasn't a huge amount of playtime. When I did have free time I had far too much money to burn, and by the time I was 12 years old I was a little monster, roaming the streets without supervision and spending money on whatever I wanted for myself and for my friends. For some reason that I cannot even fathom now, we still felt the need to go shoplifting, for kicks. We were terrible; we were like a Hong Kong Brat Pack. I also hung out with many adult friends from work who probably weren't the best influences on me. I remember being involved in some bad crowds. But my mother loved my fame. I was paraded around like a performing monkey, as if she saw my fame as some sort of status symbol. She certainly enjoyed the money I earned. While I'm sure a great deal of it was spent on me, in those days there were not the laws protecting the earnings of child actors that there are today, so I have no idea of exactly how much I earned or where it went.
There is one memory of this time, though, that makes me cringe more than any of the others…my hairstyle. I still can't believe what my mother did to my hair.
Most Chinese boys have the typical straight, jet-black hair. My mother, perhaps wanting me to stand out even further, decided I would have curly hair, so she took me to the hairdressers for a perm. I got a perm when I was only seven years old! I already had fairly light skin compared to the rest of my family. Without the typical Chinese colouring and with a perm on top of that, I stood out a mile. Quite frankly, I looked ridiculous! My dad absolutely hated it. He's a very practical man and he felt it was frivolous and vain. But my mother ignored his protests and took me for regular perms until we left Hong Kong, when I was 12 years old.
My parents' decision to leave Hong Kong was largely based on their desire to give us a British education in the UK. There were two great universities in Hong Kong that were based on the British system, but there was huge competition for places and you needed exceptional grades to get in. My parents felt we would all have a better chance of getting a good higher education if we went back to England and were educated there. My father was also concerned about the changes that might occur in 1997, when Hong Kong would be handed back to the Chinese. I was always going to be a British citizen, having been born in Liverpool, but people born in Hong Kong were unsure where they would stand in terms of citizenship once Hong Kong was no longer a British colony. My father's friend who worked in the immigration office suggested to him that the right to British citizenship, even for those who were born in Hong Kong under British rule, might get complicated. He didn't want to run the risk of being stuck in China.
So in 1979, with Britain on the brink of a historic shift in power led by the first female prime minister (the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher had just won the general election), we arrived in Wembley. We moved into a new house and I started attending the London Oratory School, a grant-maintained Catholic boys' school in Fulham. My life changed forever. There was no more TV work, no more adoring fans; it was just a regular schoolboy's life. It was a huge adjustment for me. Plus I had to get used to a whole new look in the hair department…because no hairdresser in England would give a 12-year-old boy a perm!
For the first time in my life I really felt – and knew– I was different, and not in a good way. I stood out a mile at school because I looked so different from the other boys. It made me feel as if I were somehow ugly and substandard. I became very withdrawn because, like John, I got teased and bullied for being Chinese. I got called racist names and left out of social events. I never had girlfriends like all the other boys did. I had absolutely no confidence and very low self-esteem. It was like I had a complete loss of identity. My early teenage years were probably the lowest time of my life. I was thoroughly depressed.
Life at home only exacerbated my low mood. My father was a bully and an autocrat. He believed in corporal punishment and often physically struck my older sister and me when we had done something he disapproved of. For some reason he never laid a finger on my younger sister; she was exempt from the beatings. By today's standards you would call him abusive, but back then many parents believed it was their right to punish their children with physical force. It was tough to grow up with this style of discipline and difficult to understand what drove him; I think he was trying to curb what he saw as an excessively arrogant attitude in me. What hurt worse than the beatings was the idea that I had let my father down. I craved his acceptance and praise. I felt as if nothing I ever did was good enough. To this day he never tells me he's proud of me; he is as dismissive of me and as negative as he's always been. It's taken me many years, and it's been an uphill struggle, to make peace with his behaviour. In the end, I've put it down to a generational difference of opinion. Whatever I felt, he believed that what he was doing was right and best for us. I know in my heart that he is proud of me; he just doesn't know how to show it, so there is no point in staying angry with him. I have accepted him as he is and forgiven him for things he will never apologise for. But I am at peace with my relationship with him. I am simply glad that I have broken the chain because I am a completely different father to my children. I would never punish them physically; I try to praise them and use positive, loving words with them on a daily basis.
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