Moon Lee – the chef or the travel agent?

Since my job is to safeguard the truth, I have read and digested the large volume of essays Moon has written on her “www.sina.com” blog.  It was quite interesting that she refrained from making any mention of her previous marriage and divorce ever since she lost her Beijing defamation lawsuit to Dr. Law’s present wife, Xiaoli Wang Law.  Some time during the early phases of the divorce, Moon Lee tried to blame her divorce on Xiaoli Wang.  Her wrongful accusations against Wang led to a lawsuit prosecuted by Wang against Moon for defamation, a suit that she lost in the Chinese court in Beijing.  Since that time, her frequent essays on her well-read “sina” blog completely ignore her scandalous actions and divorce.  She has just simply only written about her culinary skills and her travels.  And she intentionally avoids any clues as to her whereabouts and what she is really doing other than travel and cooking. 

Moon Lee’s blog fans have frequently asked about her whereabouts, her work, and her personal life.  She has ignored them all.  If her frequent writings were intended to maintain or grow a fan base, how can she ignore more important questions and only dwell on home-cooking and casual travel?  Is Moon trying to teach her fans?  Do her non-professional declarations influence anything at all?  Nobody knows!

One thing is clear.  The more she writes and the more she puts herself out to the public, the more she fuels the interest in her life story --- the scandal will always take center stage.

It is a shame that a once adored action actress has now become aimless and mysterious.  A once relevant Chinese celebrity has dwindled to a reclusive “blogger”.  It is just too bad!

Natalia Khan Daniel     

Moon Lee – Divorce Gone Crazy!

Our family publicist asked me to write an opinion piece to highlight the fault of the divorce laws as part of my experience in divorcing the Hong Kong celebrity actress, Moon Lee.

This was the story of a celebrity wife that was discovered after a two and a half year secret affair with an under-aged and uneducated adopted son, who also happened to have been an employee of the company she owned.  Given the facts, a normal person would expect the divorce to be relatively easy and straightforward.  Yet this turned out to be the divorce from hell, taking four years to complete and the expenditure of $1.6 million in attorneys and accounting fees.  In addition, based on Moon’s lies regarding lifestyle needs, $13,000 monthly for four years was paid for “temporary maintenance” while the final divorce decree was pending.  Despite her own wrongdoings of gigantic proportions, Moon Lee’s greed incited her to ask for millions of dollars in property division and permanent alimony to sustain her for the rest of her life.   Yet, after years of bitter litigation and a giant waste of money, all she received was about $70,000 in property division and six months of alimony of $6,000 in order to facilitate her to “leave town”.

This final result represents a resounding and catastrophic defeat for a greedy spouse in the course of divorce.  But how can this happen in America?

Let every reader be warned that the American judicial system was and still is not based on fairness in the setting of divorces.  Judges and attorneys do not even pretend that the process is fair.  Sandwiched between overworked judges with overflowing dockets and greedy attorneys working on hourly charges, divorces can never see daylight.  Judges want to postpone hearing dates in order to force parties to settle.  Attorneys want to stall and prolong cases because hourly fees earned keep pouring in.  On account of these factors, the advent of “no-fault” divorce laws did not alleviate any problems.  Lies and acrimony rage and there is really no meaningful penalty for perjury.  Attorneys love the incessant fight between parties while judges grant most “Motions” while showing propensity to “continue” the case whenever possible. 

For the system to improve, the country needs to develop a flat-fee system of attorney’s fees for divorces, much like the system presently used in China, where Courts demand that the divorce must be completed in six months.

My divorce from Moon Lee was a glaring example of the system gone wild.  We had no children born of the marriage and child custody was never a factor.  I had retired from surgery, and without earned income and living off family Trust distributions, I spent my time during the marriage on my non-profit foundation dealing with cultural exchange between China and the United States.  Not only was our judicial system corrupt and ineffective, it assisted a foreign national in her attempts to rob an American husband.

There is no way to stop spouses from doing bad things to each other.  This is human nature.  But something should be done to change our judicial system and its handling of divorce matters!

Dennis Law MD
       

Moon Lee makes the Chinese #1 in entertainment scandal

Has there ever been a celebrated Hollywood actress whose stardom plummeted into forever darkness over an incredible incestuous extra-marital affair with an under-aged teenage employee? Probably not! But as the world’s first for the Chinese side, Moon Lee did exactly that --- and has made indelible history in the Chinese movie world. Actually, the real story should make history worldwide! The true events were actually that bizarre and unexplainable in the making.


Moon Lee got her break in the movie business as a teenage high school student. Pretty with the added look of innocence and predisposed towards dancing, she was quickly turned into an action heroine with the “angelic” face. Her dance-like martial arts ability soon made her legendary among Hong Kong kung fu films. During her entire movie-making career, she was surprisingly free from any media gossip about her love-interests and sex life --- de facto, she had nothing worth gossiping about. For many years, she was the live-in girlfriend of a Hong Kong director and she helped him “mother” two daughters from a previous marriage. Then she secretly married a Cathay Pacific pilot, and in 1997, gave birth to a son in Vancouver, unbeknownst to the Chinese media. While nursing the newborn, she was broken-hearted to find out that her then husband was having an affair with an airline flight attendant. With a few months old infant in tow, she separated in 1997 in great anguish. I believe Dr. Law’s relationship with Moon started in late 1999, and according to actual words written in Moon’s diary, this new relationship brought her new hope in life. A whirlwind romance of fairytale proportions led to their marriage in late 2001. Everything I reviewed indicated that their family relationship and marriage was the envy of all. Although only discovered by Dr. Law in July of 2006, the devastating blow to Moon Lee’s life and to her marriage occurred during the Spring of 2006 when, at the age of thirty-nine, she chose to enter an illicit sexual relationship with a seventeen year old employee/dancer that she and Dr. Law adopted as a “son” a year later. A divorce that started in 2007 took fours years to complete because of cumbersome laws and judicial actions in America. After the expenditure of over US$1.6 dollars by Dr. Law in legal, accountant and expert fees, the divorce decree was granted with Moon only getting a settlement of approximately $75,000 to facilitate her “getting out of town”. This whole human tragedy demonstrated an incredible waste of emotions, time and financial resources. While it illustrated actual life occurrences that would make soap operas tame in comparison, it can remind us of how life can be full of surprises, both good and bad.


Not only have I read as much as I could, as well as the book Two Faces of the Moon, but also I had the opportunity of interviewing Dr. Law and his family last December in Hong Kong to get a close and personal perspective on the entire subject. Dr. Law’s current attitude to this sordid story was surprisingly relaxed and candid. The above events were calmly recalled without emotion and drama. I can see that he now can look upon it with a sense of humor. Yet it was this philosophical candidness that makes this story of shame so much more irresistible.


Even though I am retained as a publicist for the Law family side of the matter, I must say that this true-life story fascinates me way beyond the professional level. What could have caused this angel of Chinese “movie-dom”, having experienced betrayal and emotional tragedies of her own, to fall into such an abyss of romantic involvement? Among all the men she could have contact with, what kind of a woman, at this stage of her life, would fall for a young, poor, crude and uneducated male dancer, one whose notable quality among his fellow dancers was his lack of good-looks? Since we will never get the correct answers from either Moon or her lover-boy, it makes asking the questions even more intriguing.


My mission for the Law family is to level the public relations playing field for English speaking readers. The family believes that the Chinese media is already too plagued with faulty perceptions and reporting anyway; therefore there is nothing to be salvaged in those territories. The opinions of Asian readers drawn to gossip are totally irrelevant to all the members of the Law family. But in the English language media, there have been only rare reports that mention Moon Lee’s scandalous divorce. With the never-ending torrent of writings in the Chinese language, it is only a matter of time when things will spill over. It is now my job to assert and protect the truth before lies and gossip show their ugly faces.

Natalie Khan Daniel

Dennis Law/Moon Lee divorce --- a public relations circus!

Even though I have been engaged as a professional to add some daylight to the darkness surrounding this celebrity divorce, I do it with an unusual degree of interest and passion because this case is indeed more spectacular than the average.  It was a real story of a once widely admired Hong Kong action actress.  She was considered the adorable princess of Hong Kong action movies.  Then she married a highly successful American surgeon who had changed his career to become an impresario of Chinese musical shows.  But sometime thereafter, this middle-aged famous celebrity got involved in a “fatal attraction” with a minor that was her godson and employee, and surprisingly kept it a secret for over two years.  The romance was both illicit and illegal, and after its discovery, it gave rise to the world’s most protracted and costly divorce.  This was a story akin to the downfall of Cinderella, the destruction of Camelot --- so by necessity, a Malaysian-American professional woman like myself would be totally attracted by all its implications.  My proficiency in the Chinese language also helps me gain competent understanding of the issues at hand. 

I understand Asian culture and the nature of both Asian women and Asian media. The historical importance and impact of the Dennis Law/Moon Lee romance and its ultimate disruption is “godsend” for reporters and the nosy gossip-prone public.  Even in America where people are more open-minded and less shell-shocked by unusual sexual behavior and tastes, the Moon Lee scandal would have been an attention-grabber.  In the Asian world, this story was destined to be an unending story of passion gone astray.  Asians would hardly be able to control themselves.  That explains the intense interest all over the Chinese web.

The facts of the case fascinate me.  The future public relations potential of this story make me swoon as a professional in this arena.  But more importantly, I am hired to propagate the truth as I dissect the actions and the occurrences.  I will do it with eagerness because I believe in the cause --- the need to represent the truth while the media and the web have been exposed to such frenzy, errors and misunderstanding.

People involved have been placed in a media circus.  So stayed tuned.  As I dissect the actual events and what has been written about it, I will share with you all the implications of this incredible personal story.  There are lessons galore about America, about Chinese culture, and about human actions and misdeeds that are life-changing.   

Natalie Khan Daniel

Moon Lee Saga - Two Faces of Moon Lee to get facelifts

Now retired from surgery for over ten years (and not regretting it for one minute with Obamacare), my new professional life as a producer and director of Chinese musical theater has become more successful and gratifying.  In the middle of 2014, my production company shall world premiere two new productions in Beijing that promises to shock the world with regard to their ambitious and inventive qualities.

While we have been busy moving forward the frontiers of Chinese cultural history, everyone around me is still upset about the non-stop references to the Moon Lee scandal in the Chinese web.  That is why my businesses have engaged the services of a public relations expert in the world of digital media to safeguard the truth.  It is just downright irritating that facts about my prior marriage get manipulated and misrepresented for sensationalism on a weekly basis. 

I now know for certain that it was correct and visionary to have written the book, Two Faces of the Moon.  Having engaged a Chinese movie star in a media battle over a divorce that was based solely on her spectacular wrongdoings, I knew it was important to provide a durable and truthful documentation of real occurrences especially when both my ex-wife and the media had no regard for any truth.  One needed to sell false innocence and the other needed to peddle false drama.

Therefore, as Moon Lee flaunts her celebrity status constantly through her popular Chinese blog, it fuels the interest of cyberspace paparazzi to reinvent the old scandal.  Although this does not materially affect my life, my stardom in this regard all over China is unnecessary and undeserved irritation.       

I have approved a new public relations campaign that will help differentiate fact from fiction for anyone who is interested.  In addition, a new Chinese e-book distribution company (www.eeshoo.com) will soon push the worldwide sale of Two Faces of the Moon.  This publication was decided not by the need to punish Moon Lee but by the need to enlighten readers about the dangers of bad decisions in life that may give rise to devastating consequences.  Moon’s celebrity status will become her worst enemy now because it is precisely her name recognition that allows valuable lessons to be learned from her bad choices.

For Moon Lee and all her fans, dream on!  As for me, I am still paying penance for having once loved and trusted a flawed Chinese celebrity.  There is no right or wrong to debate; whatever lies in the future of this story rests on the truth and the consequences of Moon Lee’s misdeeds and miscalculations.  Alas, real history can never be rewritten.            

The Moon Lee Scandal – the notorious “Closet Affair”

Even though countless happy life-changing things have occurred since my final divorce from Moon Lee, her momentous scandal that ended the marriage still haunts my entire family and me on a recurrent basis.  Not that it was to hard to forget the absurd qualities of her extra-marital affair or her bottomless greed and monumental lies during the lengthy divorce, but her story still fascinates unendingly so many Chinese people.  As a result, the Moon Lee “closet affair” remains a fixture on Chinese social media and cyberspace.  Her unique history-making scandal also often becomes a comical and spirited topic of inquiry and conversation when we meet new friends in China and Hong Kong.

Of course, the open disclosures about the Moon Lee scandal were forced upon me by the very nature of her high profile celebrity status.  Even though the entire matter should have stayed a private and confidential family matter, Moon Lee’s ill-deserved fame among Chinese common folks and her need to blame me for her tragic mistake in life necessitated a candid declaration of the truth whenever possible.  That was why the fairytale life of a darling movie star plunging into sudden darkness became an unavoidable and unending matter of interest.  Human behavior that starts with the sinful and implausible and ultimately becoming silly and absurd really appeals to the imagination of the masses in Chinese culture.  Remember that this is a culture that has no equal in the whole world in given rise to gossip and fascination over sexual indiscretions.

The truth about her incredible extra-marital affair will remain without equal for a very long time.  That is why I have accepted the fate of having my name dragged into the mud in cyberspace with her for eternity.  Even my wife and daughter have accepted that inevitability in good spirits.  And it is particularly because our current life is great that allows us the sanity to treat the Moon Lee scandal as comic relief. 

Nevertheless, it intrigues us every now and then to imagine how life has changed for this one-time beloved and respected superstar.  Sure enough, she still maintains an ignorant yet sizeable blog-fan base.  Seven years have elapsed since the disclosure of her “closet affair” and of course the public persona of Moon Lee has changed drastically.  During the marriage, she was revered as a movie celebrity that made the successful change from actress to an admired advocate for Chinese art and culture worldwide.  Even though she had no experience with musical and dance theater, I allowed her to share the production platform so that she could realize her dream to be culturally and artistically relevant.  But she gave all that up over an uncontrollable incestuous affair with a teenage male dancer, a series of actions that almost decimated the production company that she proudly called her own.

Since Moon Lee’s dismissal from that company, we have all given it a facelift of immense proportions.  What was in old times a performance troupe has now become a successful production company of great promise.  What we will produce in 2014 will shape the history of Chinese performing arts for many years to come.  When the time is ripe, I will make announcements about those projects.  As much as Moon Lee is still ridiculed for her foolish action and choices, sometimes we almost pity her for what she has become.  We wonder what has happened to and what has become of her son who was indeed an innocent victim of two marital disruptions of his early youth.  We only know that for the last seven years, all we know about the once famous and admired Moon Lee is what she is willing to tangentially disclose in her frequent blog essays ---- while never telling about her whereabouts, her career or professional endeavors or her family situation, she only writes about her cooking and her travels.  Alas, she has become a free travel guide and an amateur chef on the Chinese web!    

Twilight of the Moon

My new direction in life, personally and professionally

Twilight of the Moon

- An Eulogy to the Illustrious Career of Moon Lee

By Dennis K. Law MD

Having just happily remarried in September and now on the brink of my career’s new breakthrough success in Las Vegas, I believe I have truly crossed a major crossroad of my life.  As I ponder about life and legacy, I cannot avoid dwelling on what has brought me here so far.  Retiring from a career as a high profile surgeon back in 2001 was certainly a milestone.  Without knowing better, my marriage to ex-Hong Kong movie star Moon Lee (Li Sai Feng) in December of 2001 was thought to be a highlight of my life at that time.  As it turned out, any “highlight” associated with that event turned out to have nothing to do with personal and family life but instead marked the turning point in my career choice --- to become a director and producer of a new genre of musical theater called Action-Musical.

As Director and Producer, my tenth Action-Musical, Senses (the Las Vegas edition), will soon open to audiences at the new Giordano Theatre at the prestigious Fashion Show Mall in this true entertainment capitol of the world.  On that occasion, a new chapter of Chinese entertainment history will be written.  For the first time in the world, a Chinese show will debut with an open-ended run in the most enviable and prestigious of locations.  Chinese performing arts will become a permanent fixture on the famous Las Vegas strip, and if that could not make me proud as a person of Chinese heritage, nothing will.  On a different front, this show will also showcase a new kind of open-mindedness and daring with regard to Chinese theatrical arts. Senses, the Action-Musical will portray the subject of human sensuality and figurative 







art like no other show before it.  This show shall represent a climax in my new professional achievement as I reach out to the world with new and different Chinese elements of musical theater.  Combining the most advance of digital projection technologies with the flamboyant sensuality of body-painting art, I have also added the versatility and athleticism of Chinese classical dancing.  By doing so, unprecedented visual beauty is achieved.  The elements of Senses can be found on the website www.senseslasvegas.com.

Over the last ten years, I have been forced to face incredible trial and tribulation in both my personal and professional life to reach where I am today.  It is a testimonial to my resiliency and my unfailing sense of mission.  It is also a compliment to my ever-present support from all family members as well as true friends and supporters. Legends have been made with regard to my marriage to Moon Lee in 2001, but even more spectacular worldwide news has been associated with the notorious divorce.  As horrific as her infamous “closet affair” with our adoptive son was when that was announced in 2007, and as barbaric and unethical as she was in the course of divorce, in retrospect I believe that my life might not have taken this turn if I had not met her in late 1999.  Without Moon Lee, I probably would not have retired prematurely in 2001 from being a prominent surgeon in Denver, Colorado.  Without our activities in China during the early days of our marriage, I would not have stumbled across the 
nature of Chinese classical dance that ultimately re-directed my attention to this field of Chinese performing arts.  To be clear, I do not want to give Moon Lee any credit in my development in this new career path.  In all ten works of Action-Musicals to date, I have been the writer/producer/director of record, and during the few years while 
Moon Lee was by my side, she was essentially the “wallflower” designed to gather any publicity opportunities for the projects.  She had been a retired movie star of only Hong Kong style kung fu films and her previous work in the field of dance merely consisted of being a principal of a Hong Kong dance school for children younger than ten years of age.  The Moon Lee Dance Academy survived in the Hong Kong market because of her local celebrity status and not because of her knowledge of dance.  In my theatrical business as well as in my personal interest in dance art, Moon was only helpful in attracting the Chinese language media.  Based on the weakness of her experience and educational background, her real artistic contribution to our productions was non-existent.  That is unless one pretends that a pretty face on the sidelines helps the production of an international stage show.  What I am saying is not just personal prejudice because one expects me to be harsh on her.  Regardless of Moon Lee’s attempts to market a different picture of herself, my statements represent just the truth in plain sight if one would objectively consider her true credentials, experience and training. 

Whereas my detractors will find me villainous in discussing Moon Lee ever again, I firmly believe that I have every right to debate issues pertinent to my life and my legacy and in matters that have contributed to my becoming a public figure.  The good two and a half years of marriage of my life to Moon Lee facilitated a change of direction of my life.  Of the bad part of the subsequent seven marital years, two and a half was spent suffering (unknowingly) under her secret affair with an unworthy “son” of little value while the rest was dedicated to a lengthy divorce process from hell.  How does a man remain kind to a woman that, despite immense misconduct of her own choosing, she chooses to lie and cheat in order to gain underserved monetary fortunes and regain ill-deserved reputation?  Despite the immense legal fees for the divorce that reached just over a million US dollars, my only vindication was the final Court ruling in which the judge, fed up with her constant lies and misrepresentations, hammered her with a righteous verdict that granted Moon Lee abysmally little for her four-year long legal battle.  Even the judge voiced that this small amount of money was given in order to transition her back to Hong Kong, in essence “getting the villain out of town”.  Considering that Moon Lee had officially requested from the Court both millions of dollars in divorce settlement and also an assurance that I would support her for the rest of her life, this was embarrassing and humbling defeat for any woman.  I believe for now, she has probably sent her beloved son back to Hong Kong under the care of her other ex-husband, and she remains in Denver dating a Caucasian man unknowing of her previous exploits and treachery.  She is selling her body and soul to an unsuspecting western man in order to make ends meet.  In Moon Lee’s present existence, she could only act as the constant guardian of her blog.  She is “blogging” as a travel guide for her loyal but ignorant fans.  She wants to create a “make-belief” for her few remaining admirers that she lives a life of leisure and glamour while finding it hard to come to terms with what deep dark tunnel she has dug for herself.  For several years, I knew her well as her husband before she turned to the dark side for reasons still unknown.  This precipitous downfall for a personage of such prior esteem is even heartbreaking to behold for a victimized ex-husband. Believe me or not, I really do pity her.  My life is now so much improved that there is indeed no room for hate.  The infamous Moon Lee “Closet Affair” has merely become a joke within my circles.  Yet for the two-faced Moon, still a middle-aged beauty to be reckoned with, the truth is that life is clearly no joke at all! 

Despite blogging her false “happiness” to ignorant fans, Moon’s life has dimmed beyond twilight.  I did not wish this outcome on her and did not do anything to contribute to it.  Her choices and her actions were entirely her own.  It should remind all of us that misdeeds would always bring the just outcome.

Presently, I thank my beautiful and talented wife, Alyssa Xiaoli, for her dedication and support in contributing to my success.  I thank my adorable daughter Jade for her love and loyalty, and for understanding why I am often separated from her because of work.  I thank all the dedicated members of my staff that laboriously and selflessly contribute time and talent to make our productions the best that they can be.  That is why my life is where it is now!

Senses in Las Vegas is just part of a new beginning.  Follow closely, and I guarantee even more glorious developments in the near future.