I THINK IT'S AS GOOD of a place to start as any to where I'm really from.
There's a start to every story, I've been in enough films to know that. And not exactly every starting makes sense. So get this, the start of my life story might leave you at some shock. If not shock, then definitely confusion.
I don't know who Joseph Lively is. I don't know 孙管彤 (Sun Guan Tong ) or otherwise known as Adele Sun Lively after wedding Joseph Lively. I don't know these two people. Well, later on I would but we'll get there afterward. I'm not their child. And nor did they ever have a child, well not together, but maybe with someone else, not that I know of though. I don't exactly care. So, they're not my parents. Not my real parents at least, but I don't think they have ever thought of me as a kid of theirs other than a ATM machine and pride bringer.
Therefore my name, it wasn't always Maeve Sun Lively or 孙雪莉 (Sun Xue Li). But one thing real? I was born in Beijing, some months around 2002, my mother never told me the exact date because she didn't want me to know, she said I didn't deserve to. Except Beijing itself is bigger than you might think. I was born in the countryside. Not the city side people know me for.
I would later come to know that the village I was born from was called 和静村 (He Jing Cun). The name itself actually means something along peace. But back then, I didn't know that. I just knew that this is my home, this is where I live.
My real mother, and I mean not Adele Sun, her name was 陈家玲 (Chen Jia Ling). And my real name, the name my actual mother gave me was 陈星星 (Chen Xing Xing), I hated that name. It was an unoriginal and most effortless name a mother can give to her child. I had asked her when I was young, why she named me that. She said to me, "I couldn't think of a name, so I saw the stars and decided that'll be your name."
I never knew who my father was. My mother said he was some foreigner who came by and she had a one time thing with him, the next day he was gone. And then a few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant.
Her own parents kicked her out because of me. And then she later found her way to our village. The women were kind enough to help her give birth to me, take us in, and help her start a home.
Our village was poor though. I still remember how the plain rice we ate everyday felt like a pleasure, and then the few vegetables and eggs on the dinner table was like a treasure you're too scared to touch. It was like we had so much labor and yet the more work we did, the less money we were paid. Till this day, I still don't even know who paid us and where exactly the money was coming from. I just knew life was hard and I didn't like that. Except I should've known that life doesn't get easier just because the things around me get prettier.
My mother was the village's most beautiful woman. She was skinny with a tiny waist, but she had these curves that men often stopped to look at. She didn't need any special kind of clothes like the other women in the village to look beautiful. She just was, and you'd stop whatever you're doing to check if you're really seeing her. But she was just beautiful, not much else.
I inherited the kind of eye-gawking look from her. I was born and gifted with a sort of beauty even more glamorous than her. I basically won a gene lottery, let's say that.
Now, I don't take credit nor pride in this, I did not make my own face or give myself this body. But I knew from a young age the kind of power this has given me. I knew the effects I had on others, and I wasn't going to just pretend I don't know how I look and be ignorant about it. When you're gifted something, you use it. Don't try to ignore that kind of power if it'll benefit you.
People often liked to give me things. Like food or accessories. They say to me; "Awe, look at you now dear. How big you've grown! Here, give this to you and your mother, say it's a friendly gift."
I would look in the mirror at my face sometimes, and I'd often think to myself; what if I didn't have this face? Would they still give me these things then?
Not just the adults, but the village kids too. I remember very clearly when I was around eight, there was a boy named 杨康 (Yang Kang) who found a rock that was shaped into a heart. He said to me eagerly, "I'm going to tie a rope to this and give it to my mom as a necklace!"
I had thought about what he said, and I knew that I wanted to impress my mother. So I said back to him, "Oh, except I wanted to do that for my mom too. But since you found the rock first, I guess it's yours." And I knew you couldn't just say something for it to work. You need to act it too. So I let my face hang in a sort of lopsided way, frowning just enough that won't make me look like I'm trying too hard.
He looked back and forth from me and the rock in his hand. He was hesitant, but finally, he gave the rock to me and said; "Here you go, I mean my mother already knows I love her so I won't need this."
I ignored what he had said about his mother and thanked him. Because in a way, it felt like he was saying: Your mother doesn't love you so you'll need this more than I do. Although I knew he didn't mean that, he wouldn't know.
I tied the perfect rope I found to the rock and gave it to my mother. She looked at me and she goes:
"Why can't you be more useful?"
I wanted to tell her that I am useful. That the whole village loves me. They adore me. I was sweet. I was kind. I had a sort of power and I knew how to use it. But just why couldn't she see the good other people saw in me?
My mother made sure, in every way possible, that I knew what I am. Whenever I complained, whenever I misspoke or say something wrong, or just whenever she felt like she needed to remind me; she will tell me how useless I am. How she wished she never had me. How she should've never slept with that foreigner. How I'm the worst thing that has happened to her and forever will be.
I would often cry under my sheets at night after she said those types of things to me. But in the morning, I'd be fresh as new. And over the courses of years, I stopped crying under my sheets. I stopped crying for her altogether.
Because I knew better of myself than she was trying to suppress me to think I was.
There was one TV in the whole village. And the village kids and I would gather around it when it's turned on. There would be singers, singing on huge stages. Dancers dancing. And then there were the films where there's actors and actresses. I liked watching TV. I liked watching the people on the screen. And I didn't know starting since when, but I knew for sure I was going to be on the screen one day.
HERE'S THE THING, I knew my mother was going to get rid of me as soon as the chance comes. And the only way she knew how was to marry me off.
My body started to develop when I was ten. I was earlier than all the other girls in my village. My chest was growing, my hips were starting to curve, and my legs were getting longer and I was losing my once childish body and looking more mature. My mind wasn't ready for the body I was being given.
By the time I was twelve, I was five foot seven and I could fit into my mother's bra perfectly.
The older boys in the village started to look at me differently. Not the way they used to see me like a little sister they needed to protect, but someone they wanted to get in bed with. And not just the boys, it was also the men. I was scared, for sure I was. I didn't know what this had meant and what would happen to me.
My mother must've noticed, because one day after I came home from the village's school, she said to me:
"That body and face of yours is at least something useful you have. Find a rich man to marry and pay me back the money I've been feeding you."
I knew better than to talk back but the words instantly slipped out of my mouth. "I don't want to marry a rich man."
She looks at me like I've just said the funniest thing. "Well then, what else can you do for me?"
I thought she meant that question at the moment, I thought she might have finally seen something in me. Maybe then she'll love me when I become something better.
"I'm going to be on the TV someday!"
Before I knew what I had said, she grabbed her hitting stick and threw me down at the hard wooden table we usually ate at. I cried and she hits me harder each time I do.
"Say that again!"
"I-I'm sorry! I won't say it again!"
She stopped hitting me until she felt satisfied, but I think that wasn't the most painful part. The most hurtful part of it all was when she was walking away and she said:
"If you think you can ever be on that screen, you're a ridiculous fool. I've raised a useless, and stupid daughter."
After that, I had to limp for a whole month because I couldn't walk properly from where she had hit me. The village people knew, anyone who had eyes and a brain could see and tell what caused my limping, but none of them talked. And I thought to myself everyday from then on, I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to let the whole world know me on that screen, then she'll wish she had treated me better.
There was this one stormy night where a traveling man couldn't keep on going because of the weather and he needed shelter for a day or so. My neighbor took him in.
The next morning, even with the rain still sprinkling, me and the village kids (the ones that are still willing to hangout with me and not judging my body) were playing around the neighborhood. And a few days before that when we were watching the TV, there was this incredible lady dancing and singing that made my eyes glue onto her the entire time. And that morning, I pretended I was her and started to sing and dance. Of course I wasn't great, but my singing was decent. And my face and body was mainly what kept the others watching, and as long as I got them watching and their attention, which way I did it was fine by me.
The traveling man was just eating breakfast until he saw me and he quickly came up to me. The village kids got bored and had gone off to do something else.
He said to me then, "Honey, you've got a real talent. Are you interested in joining a C-Pop group?"
The moment he said that, I knew it was bullshit. My singing was barely there and my dancing, well, it was just a bunch of random movements. I had no talent, at least not what he was seeing. I looked at him, and at the time I had no idea what even was C-Pop. I eyed him from head to toe, he was about thirty, and he had a double chin and a beard that needed better shaving.
"Why I've loved C-Pop since I was born!"
He asked to see my parents so I took him to my mother.
"Your daughter really has something, Ms. Chen." He hands her his business card. "I think it would really be a waste to not give her an opportunity."
I thought my mother would say yes, because I knew she wanted to get rid of me. And this was the perfect chance, she didn't even have to wait for a rich man to come by who wanted to marry me.
She politely pushed the business card away, her eyes glaring at me the whole time. "I'm sorry Mr. Wang, but I don't exactly think this is a good thing."
"But she has talent! Is this about money? If your daughter becomes famous, we can figure that out later."
I saw my mother cringe at the word money, she stood up and she's already ushering Mr. Wang out. "My daughter has no talent, she'll be of better use here than out there foolin' on a stage!"
"But——"
Mr. Wang was gone, and it was just me and my mother. And I knew very well of what was going to happen next.
She's eerily silent as she walks over to grab her hitting stick. When she turns around, she eyes me with tears in her eyes.
"How dare you disrespect me like this! You really want to go out there and make a fool of yourself? Try that and see how things turn out!"
She hits me harder than all the times before, and as she does, I hold in my cries. I'm not going to cry this time. Not when I know what I want and the opportunity I've been given is better than the future my mother has in store for me. I knew I was right. She was wrong. I did have a talent, except I didn't know what it was yet at the time. But I knew it was somewhere on that screen, I knew I was going to make people love me. And even if my mother won't, then fine, I'll make the whole world love me.
Mr. Wang was leaving at night, I managed to hear that from my neighbor.
I had little things of what was mine, but I had the ambition to prove myself. My worth. And that was enough.
My mother was sleeping on the sofa when I was slipping out with a bag of my belongings. I took my time to stand over her, my shadow casting over her sleeping figure. Even then I could see how much I looked like her. But I was better. And I knew, as I stood over her, I had a question I wanted to ask her that I won't ever have the chance to ask.
Why did you give birth to me if you hated me so much?
She looked so beautiful under the flashing candle we had I felt tears stinging my eyes. I don't think she ever hugged me or kissed me. I bent down, even though I could have woken her, and kissed her on the forehead.
I think my whole childhood, I wanted to prove myself to my mother. Make her see how I was worth her time. How she shouldn't regret having me. That in some way, I was actually something gifted to her. Later on, I think my whole life and career was about proving my worth. I had managed to tell myself at the time that I was proving myself to this world, to make people like me, to make them know who I was. But I think, even now as I think of it, it's always been mostly about my mother. I wanted her to love me, and when I was the top paid actress in the world later on, I wanted to show her my success and ask; "See, I did all this myself, aren't you proud of me? Don't you love me?" I still wonder if she ever loved me. That day when I was about to leave her, I thought I would hate her forever. But I don't think I did or ever can.
I never fully understood how you can hate someone with every single fiber in you and then have another part of you love them no matter how hard you try not to.
Half of me was tugging at me, telling me not to go, not to do this. I barely knew Mr. Wang, and he didn't exactly look like the most trustable guy. I was twelve. I've never even been in the city or outside of our village. I had no idea what I was doing. But I also wasn't going to sit around here and wait for my mother to marry me off.
So I took one last look at my mother and I turned around and never looked back.
MR. WANG WAS JUST about to leave, and I caught him right on time.
He had a neat duffle bag in hand, and when his eyes caught me, he stopped at his trace.
"Hey, Chen Xing Xing, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night? Shouldn't you be asleep by now? At home with your mother?"
His eyes wandered to my own bag, and he raised an eyebrow.
I took a deep breath, and I still remember the fog it created in the cool night air when I exhaled. I looked him in the eye and I said:
"I don't have a mother."
You see, Mr. Wang isn't exactly the most rule following type of guy. I should have known that earlier, but I needed a path out of that village, out of my mother's grip, and he was the only choice I was given.
Mr. Wang's family has quite a lot of money, and he wanted to use that money to build a company. And at the time, he decided to build a C-Pop group organization company. He was going to find the perfect girls and form groups, and he was going to make them be seen. Make his company be seen and known in film productions and reality shows. All of that sounds pretty nice, huh? But I don't exactly think he was going to do it the right way.
That night, he asked me how old I was and everything he needed to know about me. Like about my mother, my father, all that.
I should have lied, I knew that. But my head was fuzzy during that time and I was nervous and scared. So my mouth blurted every single truth.
I told him I was twelve. I told him about how my mother was kicked out of her house after getting pregnant with me by some foreigner and that was my father. I told him about how my mother hit me. I told him about how I needed to get out or else my mother was going to marry me off and I didn't want that.
He considered everything, and clearly he looked a bit flustered and unsure. Normally, if any good person, they would tell me to go back home to my mother, tell me how impossible it is to really be famous. They'd tell me that I'm still young and that life outside isn't any easier than back here. They just wouldn't take a twelve year old girl with them. That's that.
Mr. Wang finally nodded at last and he said, "OK. I see real potential in you, sweetheart, and when I see potential I use it. I don't waste it. We'll figure something out, but let me ask you something."
I prepared myself for any kind of question he was about to ask me. I thought he was going to ask me something about law or how I'm not over eighteen yet and that my mother will still have power and control over me. That she's still basically my legal guardian.
Except he asked me: "What is it that you really want me to do for you?"
And my twelve year old mind told him what I wanted him to help me with in the most simple way I could think of.
"Make me famous."