Moon Lee: condones incestuous sexual affair but doesn’t kill cockroaches!

By Dennis Law MD (guest writer for Natalia Khan Daniel)

When I married Moon in 2001, even in retrospect, I believed she was a decent human being worthy of the affection and respect I lavished upon her.  However, the moment she developed a romantic interest in that unworthy teenage kid for whatever reason in the spring of 2004, she embarked on the road towards insanity.  Her illicit love affair with this “adoptive” son and employee was insane.  The way she tried to tell lies and extort money during the divorce was insane.  After the divorce, her continued efforts to promote herself to her fan base while denying the truth is insane.  And finally, her real or pretentious Buddhist faith is still insane!

I have never belittled anyone before for his or her religious belief.  But Moon Lee was fundamentally non-religious during our marriage and her turn towards Buddhism during and after the divorce is merely an attempt to hide under a protective shield of some high-sounding religious pretext.  The latest entry in her infamous blog (www.blog.sina.com.cn/lisaifeng) is proof for my contention.  In this brief essay, she espouses the Buddhist belief of not killing anything that has “life” by promoting to her readers a method for getting rid of cockroaches by not killing them.  The whole concept is comically silly and is unworthy of my description via translation.  How can a person who is blind to the immorality of her incestuous extra-marital affair with a teenage employee, blind to the immorality of extorting money from the family she had wronged and blind to see how her incredulous actions have hurt herself and her son “sanely” promote a lifestyle for other people that promises to save all cockroaches in the world?  It would be safer for Moon to return to being the Chinese cyberspace cooking instructor or travel tour guide.  At least in these areas, even though she has no real authority in the subjects, there is only the matter of taste and involves nothing categorically right or wrong.

In blind efforts to hide from the truth and find redemption where there can be none, Moon Lee’s persona has gone from the ridiculous to the sublime.  The ignorant should stop preaching to the more ignorant.  My best advice for Moon is this: get lost and let the circus close down!

The Two Faces of Moon Lee

Face One: the pretty and innocent “Angel” of Hong Kong martial art films
Face Two: the instigator of the most absurd and insane sexual scandal in Chinese motion picture history

After several months of preparation and research, I believe I am ready to launch the campaign I was initially engaged for ---- to help Dr. Law’s family by set the record straight regarding his scandal-ridden marriage to and divorce from Moon Choi-Fung Lee, once the pretty, bright shining starlet of Hong Kong kung fu films. As I once opined, if it were not for the Chinese internet-media’s obsession with this “Closet Affair” scandal fueled by Moon Lee’s continued efforts to cater to her fan base rather than dropping out of sight and mind, I would have little to do in this current engagement. For readers with an interest in Moon Lee, especially those literate in Chinese, visiting her blog at www.blog.sina.com.cn/lisaifeng would be most informative. This would give anyone an extraordinary insight into the workings of the mind for someone once so famous and so beloved but now falling into some endless narcissistic journey of a travel and culinary guide. It is of particular interest that while Moon Lee clearly wants to engage her fans (that are by definition not her friends since there is no “personal” knowledge of anything), she has for years offered absolutely no information as to her whereabouts, her work if any, the status of her son and family, or her plans for the future.

Whereas Moon Lee’s blog campaign has offered her the visible invisibility she has sought, Dr. Dennis Law has openly marched forward with his second career after his total retirement from a successful career in general, thoracic and vascular surgery. My recent interview with him revealed that he will open a sit-down permanent show in Beijing, Terracotta Warriors 3D, billed as the first show in world history to feature true 3D art direction. While wearing conventional cinema 3D glasses, the audience will experience an unprecedented combination of live-action and hi-definition 3D grand cinema. On a different front, Mrs. Alyssa Law, the former Xiaoli Wang, views the entire Moon Lee scandal with a different perspective. While the scandal was entirely attributable to Moon’s actions, Alyssa was previously enraged by Moon’s false assertion that she was the culprit in the marriage. Now settled down in the pursuit of the “good life”, I feel that Alyssa is looking back at it all with a new sense of humor. Both Dr. Law and Alyssa are both comfortably on a journey of success both professionally and personally. They will leave it up to me to set the record straight regarding their past encounter with the “devil”.

So for all those interested in the truth behind the downfall of Moon Lee, the “Angel” of Hong Kong martial arts films, look for both the upcoming website www.twofacesofthemoon.com (launching mid-May) as well as the entire book (described as “an insight into Chinese extra-marital affairs”) available for download through iBook.

Cheers,
Natalia Khan Daniel

                 

Moon Lee – the destruction of a “rags to riches” fairytale

I recently called Dr. Law to pick his brain further with regard to his life story.  Good natured as usual, he volunteered to put on paper some of his remembrances and regrets.  What follows is the edited version of what he sent me.

Even now, knowing what had transpired to drastically change my life, I would be untruthful to say that I regretted knowing and marrying Moon Lee.  For the first four years of our relationship, from courtship through to 2004, she was very much the “angel” depicted by many of her movie persona.  Having grown up under harsh financial conditions, she made it on her own through talent and hard work.  During the initial two and a half years of marriage, she was indeed the perfect wife, mother and companion.  The reason for the free fall to hell after she met the legendarily unworthy young lover at a Terracotta Warriors rehearsal remains the most baffling puzzle of all time.

In so many aspects of life, Moon Lee was too thoughtful and self-restrained.  Yet what she did in forsaking her family in favor of an illicit affair without a future was the ultimate lesson in deceit and malfeasance.  In order to mastermind such a cover-up of passion of such monstrous proportions, she had to not only convince herself that it was worthwhile but also she had to play act so convincingly that it would fool family, friends and all employees.  In the end when everything fell apart for Moon, I cannot fathom how she could rationalize the whole process to herself.  Adults, both men and women, have been known to self-destruct over misplaced romance and passion from the beginning of time.  So perhaps even I should no longer ponder the reasons why the “angelic” Moon Lee went astray.  In the long run, however, the person most damaged and the life most irreversibly altered belongs to her son from an earlier marriage, Aldo Chan.

Aldo was in every way the innocent victim in the soap opera of family scandals that surrounded him in his early life.  Before he uttered his first cry, his mother was aware that her then pilot husband was carrying on an affair with a flight attendant.  Named after a Canadian shoe retailer, Aldo’s parents separated while he was a neonate.  Moon Lee met me when Aldo was nearly three years old, and in the year 2000, they started a new life based in the United States, located at a fabulous estate in magnificent Denver, Colorado.  For a youngster transplanted from Hong Kong, this was a future without parallel.  The upbringing and the educational opportunities afforded to Aldo were without bounds, especially considering the high academic credentials and standards of everyone in the Law family.  Yet, starting in the summer of 2004, Aldo’s mother had put into motion dark and perverse forces that would forever Aldo life for evermore.  Through absolutely no fault of his own, Aldo’s new and happy family life in America would come to beginnings of a crashing end by late 2006.  Since his mother is too ashamed to be in Hong Kong and too financially indisposed to reside in the United States, I believe Aldo now lives with Moon in Macau.  I suppose there can be a worse place to grow up in the world, but nobody sane would truly believe that Macau is the ultimate land of opportunity for a youngster of today. 

In the entire course of my life with Moon Lee, I am not regretful of her scandalous misconduct --- after all, my family life now without her is much better than what it could have been with her!  But I am truly sorry that the disruption of my then marriage made it impossible for me to provide for Aldo in a way that I promised him at one time --- to give him easy access to a successful life in the new world.  Even in the process of divorce, his mother’s indecent actions and outright lies made it impossible to keep her notorious behavior confidential.  So Aldo was truly the innocent victim amidst this scandalous real-life tale of the now famous “Closet Affair” – a forced and unwilling accomplice of a world famous errant mother!  The clock cannot be turned back, and history cannot be rewritten.  Being human, our destiny is a function of our actions.

For me, it seems amazing that Dr. Law’s most significant regret was not the betrayal by his attractive, movie star wife.  His focus on the wasted opportunities in life for his ex-stepson is both convincing and moving for me as his family publicist.  The philosophical conclusion that indeed we are all personally responsible for our ultimate destiny and legacy is truly meaningful.

Natalia Khan Daniel     

            

Moon Lee – the most colorful sex scandal in Chinese entertainment history

Pictured above:  Moon Lee with her unlikely teenage lover-boy Zong Tianyi, 2004

The more I study the Moon Lee sexual misconduct that lead to her divorce and downfall, the more I am fascinated by all the interpretations and implications, especially among the Chinese. Even though Moon makes the “top-ten” list of sexual improprieties in most writings by Chinese pundits, her ranking can vary remarkably depending on the observer. Yet Moon’s illicit affair was so bizarre and absurd that it should have guaranteed her the number one spot if only the other sinners were not more famous as entertainers. She has been out of the celebrity limelight for so long: that is why her spectacular “closet affair” would be often eclipsed by lesser transgressions of other more famous stars.

Most of the sexual misconduct attributable to Chinese celebrities was easily understandable based on actions arising out of normal sexual appetites. But Moon Lee’s actions and choices were emphatically incomprehensible: a) she was sexually attracted to a boy who was still a teenager and twenty-two years younger; b) the boy also became her adopted son which added an incestuous component; c) the boy was unattractive by standards of his contemporaries, as well as impoverished and uneducated; d) Moon was de facto this boy’s employer thereby constituting “sexual abuse” in the workplace; e) the affair was not an impulsive “one night stand” but rather a determined choice, lasting two years before it was interrupted by accidental discovery.

Can there be any salvation from the above notorious bad choices? How did the beloved “angel” of Hong Kong action films reach so low while being married and mother to two children? Since her divorce, this once darling of kung fu films has revealed absolutely nothing except for blog articles about her hobbies involving cooking and travel. As I studied her past successes and her more recent failures as a third party observer, even though I am inclined to hate her for extraordinary foolishness, I cannot avoid feeling sorry for her. American celebrities have lost their lives over foolishness with serious drugs, but that finality of death avoids the transgressor facing indefinite shame and mockery. Regardless of very public denials, poor Moon Lee knows exactly what happened to her life. She can hide the truth from certain fans, but she cannot hide from herself. I believe this will gnaw at her in the worst way for the rest of her life. And for this heartache, there is no cure! Indeed, this is real tragedy!

Natalia Khan Daniel

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