PUBLISHED ONSeptember 07, 2024 5:06 AMByYeo Shu HuiLocal actor Xie Shaoguang has returned to showbiz after a hiatus of 20 years and sat down with AsiaOne for an interview yesterday (Sept 6).
Among several topics that we chatted about, one of them was about his long-time screen partner Huang Biren.
Shaoguang feels that his "fate" with the actress is "very deep".
Besides being well-liked by audiences when they acted together in dramas such as Marriage Dollars And Sense (1996), Stand by Me (1998) and Are You My Brother (1999), they are also bonded by what they had experienced in Taiwan in 1999, when they were filming the drama Ai Qing Luan Ma.
Biren, now 55, revealed in the talk show Hear U Out in 2021 that she found out she was pregnant after arriving in Taiwan and Shaoguang accompanied her to buy a pregnancy test kit — he was also the first one to find out the result.
Shaoguang, 62, shared candidly: "When she realised she was pregnant, I got nervous. Because instinctively, I wanted to protect her and take care of her."
"I come from a big family and I know how to take care of children, but not a pregnant woman," he laughed, adding that he was worried about her nutrient intake then and always ensured that she had a good diet, including fish and cherries.
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He also shared that he wanted her to complete her scenes first, so that she could return to Singapore quickly.
Unexpectedly, soon after Biren returned to Singapore, Shaoguang experienced the 921 earthquake, also known as the Jiji earthquake — the second-deadliest earthquake in Taiwan's recorded history — which affected him greatly.
"That experience really shook me up. It's quite traumatic for me," he revealed to us.
Shaoguang shared that he had already experienced small tremors then, but didn't expect it to be that serious.
"At one point, the tremors were really great. I was thinking, 'Oh dear, it's an earthquake'. Some people may choose to hide somewhere, or choose to use a fridge to form the triangle [of life]. But I was too tired then, so I thought to myself, 'See how first, maybe it's not that serious.'"
But it only got worse.
He added: "I heard the water pipes twist in the distance. The glass cracked… After the tremors, the electricity was cut off... When I went to the toilet, there was water on the floor. At first, I thought it was because the water pipe had cracked, but it turned out that the tremors had shaken water out of the toilet bowl.
"That was when I realised how serious it was and was shocked by it."
Shaoguang said that he still had to go out for filming and felt "surreal" when he went to the lobby of the accommodation as the floor tiles had cracked and there was a lot of damage.
"It was then that [the seriousness of the earthquake] started to sink in. As we were heading to the film set, the roads were closed off everywhere. When I was near the film set, I also saw a motel had collapsed. I saw how serious it was," he shared.
Besides that, he had also heard a young staff member, who was working part-time at the film set during his school holidays, was seriously injured in the earthquake.
He recounted that he was "affected" by what he saw and heard, including hearing about inconsiderate contractors and challenges in the subsequent rescue efforts, which made him "sad" and "angry".
In addition, Shaoguang also shared that he was feeling "burnt out" and 'tired" after filming Stepping Out (1999) and adapting to the hot summer weather and local culture while filming in Taiwan.
"I had a mental collapse. It can cause PTSD." Shaoguang told us candidly.
With what he had experienced in Taiwan and what he had seen while volunteering after the Sri Lanka tsunami in 2004, he retired from the entertainment industry in 2005 when his contract expired.
He also did not remain in contact with any local artistes, including Biren, who revealed in the 2021 interview that she had tried to contact him a few times between 2008 and 2009, but to no avail.
"I chose not to maintain contact with her because I didn't want her to know what I had experienced in Taiwan. I have never told her this before… and about what happened, I didn't know what my emotions would be when I see her," Shaoguang said.
"I also don't want her to feel guilty because she was pregnant at the time, because I felt that was what I should do to take care of her. She should also have completed filming earlier and gone back to Singapore for prenatal care."
He added that what he had experienced in the Jiji earthquake is "a chapter [he] doesn't want to relive".
Shaoguang understands that Biren might want to "catch up on old times", but the earthquake had a "significant meaning" to him.
"Maybe she might feel that she could offer me comfort, but to me, I don't want to relive the experience, because it's really quite terrible," he said.
Shaoguang has signed a contract with Mediacorp's talent management arm The Celebrity Agency and will take on opportunities "in front and behind the camera". He will be dedicating himself to mentoring the next generation of artistes and also be involved in co-developing scripts and show concepts.
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