Jackie Chan, who is famous for his incredible expertise in martial arts and his principles in life, had a quite struggling childhood. The actor had to go to the Chinese Drama Academy and spend ten years there. While that was quite challenging for a seven-year-old, when he grew up, Chan faced the ultimate challenge of life- survival. Though he dreamt of getting the role of a fighter in the movies, the Rush Hour actor struggled initially.
However, after dabbling with some other professions, he finally got a chance. It was his strained prowess that Chan soon became famous. But keeping all his past struggles in mind, the martial artist had his fair share of adversities coping with the new life. In his life’s narrative, the Chinese superstar opened up about the troubles he faced at that time. Let’s get to know more about this.
Jackie Chan’s upbringing impacted his career initially
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In his autobiography, Never Grow Up, the Vanguard actor capped off unknown factors of his life. He brought back the time when he was just getting famous. It was a time when Chan met the Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng. He used to go out with her on certain occasions. One day, the beautiful singer asked him out and arranged a dinner at a fancy French restaurant. Though they had a quiet dinner, Chan felt uncomfortable. He was not familiar with the etiquette and felt like an outcast.
Chan later described how he was gulping his food and finished the 2-3 hours 3-course meal within 30 minutes. However, his discomfort eventually made him angry, thinking about his shortcomings. The actor wrote in his book,?“I behaved so badly because of my deep insecurities. Ever since I was a little boy, I?d been looked down on by rich kids. Then I?d had a grueling decade at the CDA and started work at the lowest level of society. What I hated more than anything was when those in power were dismissive toward those without.”
In fact, the Chinese maestro also shared how he felt like an “oaf” in front of Teresa. He penned, “Right from the beginning, our personalities were very different, and we were unable to meet each other halfway. Or, to put it another way, she was too good for me.” Evidently, his unlucky childhood paved the path for Chan to feel different from others.
Chan’s past struggles
As it was clear from his book, the Rush Hour actor had to go through a lot to do something with his career. While being an expert in martial arts, he wanted to dabble with something related to his field in Hong Kong,?but he failed twice to come up with a successful career.
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Later Chan had to work as a restaurant busboy and a worker at a construction site in Australia until he got that call from a stunt team from Hong Kong, which eventually changed his life.
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Back in that time, when Jackie was only emerging to be an actor, his past life made him conscious and contradicted his new life as an actor. But surpassing all those adversities, the actor rose to fame, and the rest, as it turned out, is history.