Beam Me Up, Spotty
One of the funny things about Chinese actors is that some of them look really cool in one kind of clothing, but like total dorks in another. For example, a guy called Wakin Cheng looks really good in historical costume, but is sort of strange and nondescript looking in modern clothes. Take Spotty Wang as another case in point. Wang Ban was the star of Return Is Like a Rainbow ÔºàÂ?íÈÄî¶ÇËô?Ôºâ, the military soap opera on which I made my Chinese TV debut. (I was a Hong Kong journalist in a press conference scene.) His name is a mystery to me — spotty, or stripey, as it could also be translated, seems like an awful name for somebody. My only guesses are that his parents weren’t well educated and meant to name him Áè? (meaning class, like in school) , also pronounced “ban,” but wrote the wrong character, or that he was an especially spotty baby (most Chinese babies have these things called “Mongolian spots” on their buts and backs). Anyhow, he looked really cool in military clothes in the show. However, he looks dorky in anything else. I recently saw him in Jia Meng Jing Meng, where he played a pompadoured ne’er do well with a laughable wordrobe. Pretty silly looking. Then I saw him in a historical costume drama, where he looked heavy, and, well, spotty.
Here’s the URL for a whole page of Spotty pictures, so you can get the full effect:
http://ent.gz163.cn/celebrity/group1/star1339.htm