Vicky Zhao Wei

[GeneChing]

vs. Wolf Dad

Tiger Mum or Cat Dad? Claws out over parenting styles
By BBC Trending
28 May 2015


Poster image for Chinese TV show Tiger Mum Cat Dad

Move over Tiger Mother - there's a new cat on the block.

Perhaps you're familiar with the super-strict mum who pushes her kids to be the best at school, sport, and music - no matter what the cost. It's a parenting style made famous in 2011 by the Chinese-American author Amy Chua and her best-selling book "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother". Well, there's another feline in the parenting world: Cat Dad.

Cat Dad takes a more softly, softly approach to parenting - preferring to be emotionally sensitive, gentle and relaxed about rules and discipline, in the belief that it will make their offspring self-sufficient and independent. The term has been trending on the micro blogging site Sina Weibo because of a hit Chinese television programme, "Tiger Mom Cat Dad". The two lead characters are, as the title suggests, a fierce Tiger Mom and a chilled-out Cat Dad. Their styles collide as they try to raise their young daughter.

While Cat Dad may not be as well known as Tiger Mother, he's actually been around nearly as long. One of the original Cat Dads was Chang Zhitao, a father from Shanghai who went head to head in a debate with Chua shortly after her book was published. Despite having vastly different approaches to parenting, both Chua and Chang had daughters who were accepted into Harvard University.

And as if the Tiger-Cat fight wasn't enough, there's also another animalistic parenting persona coming from China. Wolf Dad is even stricter than Tiger Mom and is epitomised by Xiao Baiyou, a father who believes that "beating kids is part of their upbringing."

"Just as their names suggest, Cat Dad prefers a gentle approach to children's education, while Tiger Mom and Wolf Dad believe that education is a painful process," says Vincent Ni of BBC Chinese. "It's been a long time since Chinese TV aired such a drama that captured the two seemingly conflicting education philosophies so well. While closely following the drama, Chinese audiences also took to social media to discuss, share and voice their different opinions of the way to raise kids."

More than 80m people tuned into "Tiger Mom Cat Dad" and the series finale attracted tens of thousands of comments on Weibo. Some defended Cat Dad: "I think there is too much bullying going on in their household. It's completely disrespectful. There's no consideration whatsoever towards the man," one user commented. Others saw the dad as a weak character who wasn't compatible with his wife: "I think the tiger mother and the cat dad should divorce," one viewer wrote. "I really hope a wolf dad and tiger mother can be together. This type of 'warm man' (Cat Dad) is a not real man."


Actor Tong Dawei shared his own #CatDad experience

Tong Dawei, the actor who plays the Cat Dad in the TV show, posted an image of himself and his daughter to his personal Weibo account with the tongue-in-cheek caption: "Mum went out when the water pipes were broken. Daddy held back his tears and mended it before she came back." It got a huge reaction - over 63,000 likes and 5,000 comments - including the remark "As a man, I could in no way be like the 'Cat Dad'" - proof that even when life imitates art, being a Cat Dad still hasn't really caught on in China.

Blog by Anne-Marie Tomchakand Kerry Allen.

[GeneChing]

Shanghai man sues actress Zhao Wei for 'staring' at him on TV



Today in weird court cases: a man in Shanghai filed a lawsuit against the famous actress Zhao Wei for staring at him through the TV screen.

The man has accused the actress of causing "spiritual damage" with her intense glares and is now demanding compensation, China Times reports, citing the People's Court of Shanghai Pudong's New District.



Zhao stars in the popular TV drama Tiger Mom (《虎媽貓爸》), which began airing on Dragon Television and Tianjin Television in May. She plays one of the main characters, who is described as "emotionally unstable" and is known to give piercing stares to her on-screen husband and daughter.

According to Legal Daily, Shanghai's courts have seen a number of bizarre lawsuits come through since last month, when a new system of processing court cases became effective. Recently, a lawyer took legal action against a district court judge for causing damage to his health after the judge failed to call a break during a proceeding.

As of this month, The People's Court of Shanghai in Pudong New District has dismissed a total of 14 cases.

I've always liked Zhao Wei, ever since Shaolin Soccer. She does have enormous peepers though.

[PalmStriker]

She's a TOTAL BABE.

[GeneChing]

...or is that billionairess?

Hot, rich and has a huge peepers that can cause spiritual damage. Yeah, I've always crushed on Zhao Wei for oh so many reasons...

Rob Cain
Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Media & Entertainment 6/06/2015 @ 1:35CH 218.238 views
China's Billionaire Actress Zhao Wei

The world’s wealthiest working actress is a former kindergarten teacher with such keen investing acumen that she’s been nicknamed “China’s show-business Buffett” by her country’s media.

Combining brains and beauty with a Midas touch, Zhao “Vicki” Wei (赵薇) has parlayed her TV and movie acting salaries, her hefty endorsement fees, and her smart investment moves into a personal fortune, shared with her husband Huang Youlong, that recently zoomed past the billion-dollar mark.

(Ed. Note: Because Zhao shares her fortune with her husband, she would not currently qualify for inclusion in our annual billionaire rankings, which require individuals to have a net worth of $1 billion apiece, and married couples to have a shared worth of at least $2 billion, equivalent to $1 billion apiece.)

As one of China’s biggest stars, Zhao has earned millions from her acting roles, and even more from an extraordinary range of brand endorsements. She’s touted over 120 products ranging from Chinese health and beauty supplies to wines to motorcycles, as well as western brands like Mercedes Benz, DeBeers, Versace, Zegna, Dior, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Motorola and others.


Zhao Wei

Successful investments in real estate, a French winery, and a Singapore jewelry retailer have further boosted her fortune. But it has been her shrewd stock market picks that have put Zhao Wei in the “three comma club” (billionaire status), as HBO’s “Silicon Valley” character Russ Hanneman would put it.

Zhao’s biggest and most lucrative score has been her December, 2014 investment in close friend Jack Ma’s Alibaba Pictures Group. Back in June, 2014, Ma had acquired a 61 percent stake in a money losing movie operation, then called ChinaVision, at a valuation of $10.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (USD 1.3 billion). To boost the stock market value of his investment, Ma, a novice in the film business, asked Zhao Wei to bring a touch of celebrity to the film unit.

According to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing, Zhao purchased a 9.18 percent stake in Alibaba Pictures for HKD 3.1 billion (U.S. $400 million) through Gold Ocean Media, an investment company she owns with her husband Huang. Six months later, after a frenzied rise in Hong Kong stock prices, Alibaba Pictures’ market cap has soared to HKD 74.3 billion ($9.6 billion), leaving the couple with a stake (reduced by the sale of some shares in April) worth $762 million. Combining that windfall with their other holdings, the couple’s net worth has now topped $1 billion.

Born in eastern China’s mountainous Anhui province, Zhao has claimed that she never planned to become famous, explaining, “I thought actresses had to be beautiful, and I thought I was ordinary.”

The 39-year-old actress caught the acting bug at 17 when the film Hua Hun starring Gong Li came to her hometown and she was chosen to appear as an extra. Soon after, she quit her job as a kindergarten teacher and headed to Shanghai to enroll in a new film arts academy founded by legendary director Xie Jin. Then, at the age of 20 she earned the highest score in the entrance exam to enroll at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy.

While still a student there she rose to national prominence when she starred—along with now world-famous actress Fan Bingbing—in the smash hit TV drama My Fair Princess. For that role she became the youngest actress to win China’s Golden Eagle Award, the equivalent of America’s Emmy Award. She went on to more awards recognition for a string of film appearances, most notably John Woo’s Red Cliff, the epic adventure Warriors of Heaven and Earth and the Painted Skin films.

Beyond acting, Zhao’s talents also extend into other artistic fields. She had a successful career as a singer, recording seven albums between 1999 and 2009, scoring numerous top 10 hits on the Chinese music charts and an MTV Asia award as Favourite Artist from Mainland China. In 2013 Zhao made her movie directorial debut with the youth romance So Young. The film became a big box office hit, earning USD 118 million at mainland multiplexes which made it the fifth highest grossing film in Chinese box office history at the time.

Zhao has put some of her money and her time to work for charitable causes, with active involvement and donations to such organizations as the China Youth Foundation’s Hope Project, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and to China Red Cross. In 2011 Zhao received the China Charity Billboard Award for her contributions to others in need.

[PalmStriker]

So have you interviewed her yet? I'm sure she would like to grace the cover of Kungfu TaiChi in a form-set pose, yes?

[GeneChing]

The closest I ever got to Zhao Wei was at a Shaolin Festival. Read Shaolin Trips: Episode 4 - A Hero Watching the Formation: Chapter 2: Xingqiliu (Saturday): The Opening Ceremony & Gala Night. There's a photo I took of her in that article. Well, actually it's a photo of her image on a jumbotron monitor as she was on stage and I was miles away on the other side of the stadium.