English 英 : Shinan Govani Chinese 中 : 黃穎瑜 Winnie Huang

AS FEATURED IN FÊTE CHINOISE EDITION 8: INTO THE UNKNOWN 未知 · 未來

VENUE: Church at Paisley, Ontario ART DIRECTION: Melissa Haggerty PHOTOGRAPHER: Lawrence Cortez FASHION DIRECTION + STYLING: Ashley Galang MAKEUP & HAIR: Sophie Hsin, Plutino Group using Charlotte Tilbury & Kevin Murphy ATTIRE: BOSS, GUCCI, Harry Rosen, Holt Renfrew FOOTWEAR: Boss, Christian Louboutin, Gucci ACCESSORIES: Jenny Bird, Prada PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: Nicolas Emas Varone

Model meets model on a Manhattan subway track: just your average meet-cute, the way Daniel Liu tells it. A thoughtful native of California with Taiwanese lineage, he was sharing with me the story of how he came to meet his wife-to-be, Madison. 

It was the L Train. Brooklyn-bound. Sparks flew.

Carrying on their conversation on the train, she asked him a question, and was struck with his “vulnerability,” as she calls it now. One thing led to another which led to a date (or a non-date date, depending on who you ask), during which point, Madison, who is from Toronto, told him her two non-negotiables: one, she wanted children; two, she wanted to raise them in Canada. 

Years later, that deal has definitely stuck. A marriage and one son later, the Lius find themselves north of the border, where the jack-of-many-trades is making noise these days at the 19th century church they purchased in the small Ontario town of Paisley. Currently converting it into a high-design home, he’s doing his own woodworking and welding — just some of his talents — while continuing to give good face (when duty calls), and even taking a role in a box office juggernaut Shang-Chi. Daniel is living life on his own terms. Pews, included.

地下鐵碰着她，好比心中女神進入夢。愛神丘比特只花了兩個地鐵站時間就完成了他的工作——就這樣，在曼哈頓地鐵車廂中，兩個世界級模特兒邂逅了；就這樣，劉丹尼(Daniel)與Madison展開了平凡中帶不平凡的愛情故事。人氣模特兒Daniel對愛情忠貞不渝，為了愛人的一句話，甘願放下繁華，歸隱小鎮。他可不是只顧愛情，放棄所有；而是歷盡人情冷暖，自知心中所求。

貴為過去十五年來美國最多產的亞裔模特兒， Daniel也是國際級雜誌上的熟悉面孔。廿六歲那年，被星探發掘，在紐約市開始了模特兒生涯，曾為知名品牌Uniqlo、Tommy Hilfiger、John Bartlett、J. Crew、Ciroc Vodka等擔任廣告模特兒。最近，更被邀請在漫威首部華人超級英雄電影《尚氣與十環幫傳奇》亮相。

看似一帆風順，Daniel憶述：「模特兒產業看來光鮮亮麗，行業背後的辛酸，性別與種族的歧視，以及對標準身材的極端追求，卻少有人知。這些遭遇帶來了很多負面情緒及挑戰性。」他入行那年代，亞裔模特兒在美國的成功例子寥寥可數，加上個子高大，他曾經不被看好，經歷過好一陣子板間床的潦倒歲月。時至今日，那些不平等的遊戲潛規則改變不少，美籍亞裔的待遇也較前公平。

Zigging where he could zag and leaping into unexpected terrain has been his trajectory so far. Honing his intuition then sticking with it is clearly his modus operandi.

“We weren’t thinking about Paisley at all. I’d never even heard of it to be honest,” he admits now about the ambitious country project. One — inadvertently or not — that just happens to full-circle back to his own bucolic beginnings, growing up in the San Gabriel Valley where his parents expanded the family business from overseas — a nursery. “My cousins and uncles in Taiwan are all very proficient at bonsai,” as he describes. His own childhood, a kind of idyllic bubble.

“Growing up, I just remember trees and plants everywhere, and my parents were constantly working. My dad was always out in the field.... it was this incredible property, but it was also kind of gated in. So, in a way, I felt sheltered from the rest of the world. It was a fun place to grow up because I could jump on dirt piles and then go swim in the fish pond.”

Life veered dramatically when Liu was scouted by an agent, and, upon moving to New York, his first big break in the world of fashion came when he was selected to be part of a global campaign for Uniqlo, shot by none other than Mario Testino. Inevitably, Liu has a unique lens on the whole murky world of male modelling. When asked about entering the industry, he explains “Definitely a lot of emotions... and things that were challenging for me.”

初次見面 一諾千金

三年前，Daniel在其模特事業高峰之際，決定離開工作及生活了十年的繁華熱鬧紐約市， 與加藉妻子Madison移民來到加拿大，踏入這個未知的國度……原來，Daniel第一次與Madison約會的時候，她約法三章：「你若想和我認真交往，我希望你能滿足我兩個要求：一，我要生兒育女；二，我想在加拿大養育他們。」當時，他給這個率真的女孩深深吸引了，很快就兌現了承諾。

初到多倫多，他們的落腳點是High Park的一間兩房公寓，兩小口子居住是足夠的，但隨着兒子Jun出生，疫情正值緊張，面對第一輪封城，加上新手父母要費神征服每天不同的新挑戰，一家三口在這間小公寓猶如困獸鬥，令二人覺得是時候要改變。

Lots of “Am I good enough? Am I too skinny? Am I too big? Being quite tall, do I fit the clothes?” Much of which was compounded by trying to make everyone happy (every client would want something different), as well as the experience itself of living in a “model apartment” early on in his career. Picture this: four guys in a room, in bunk beds, complete with “a mattress with a sag in the middle, so my butt was basically on the hardware.”  

Being Asian in the industry, especially when he was getting into it, also required its own mental triangulations. “At every casting or every set, there was something in the back of my mind saying: did you get this job because they were specifically casting for Asian men? Or did they really want me?” Alternately: “I would see these other models getting a lot of opportunities and having castings every single day and I would just be going to the gym and thinking well, I don’t have as many opportunities because I am other.” A classic double-edged sword.

“I think when I started in 2008,” Liu continues, his hair now giving the stylish swoop that is his signature, while also giving enviable cheekbones, “they just weren’t casting as many Asian male models. There weren’t as many opportunities.” Something that inevitably brings up a gust of memory:  he can clearly recall someone, on a shoot, once joking that he was the “token Asian.” It was a throwaway comment, innocuous on its face, but like many jokes also carried a tiny sliver of truth.

陌生國度 擁抱未知

Daniel除了是一位模特兒，還是一名攝影師。他曾經有過一個夢想：希望在遠離繁囂的地方生活，在家裡擁有一個沖曬相片的黑房、同時有充分的空間讓自己潛心木工藝術。Daniel的父母來自台灣，在他出生前一年移民到美國加州，也將家族生意帶到那裡，父母及親戚們都是園藝及盆景的專家，而他對木工藝術的鍾情和審美觀也是從小培養出來的。所以，他們需要的不只是一間房子，還是一個可以實現夢想的家園。

尋尋覓覓，在多倫多市參觀了無數的房子，卻沒有找到合心水的，尤其這幾年屋價不斷飆升，作為未站穩腳的新移民，真的難以負擔。有一天，地產經紀告知，安省Paisley這個小鎮有一間小教堂以廿萬加幣出售，就讓他們萌生了將教堂改建成為自己Dream House的念頭。

An entirely different relationship with his identity emerged more recently when getting to be part of the ensemble of one of the biggest Marvel films of all time. “Game-changing,” he calls the experience of doing Shang-Chi, not so much in terms of his own career (although it doesn’t hurt), but, more importantly,“in terms of all this baggage that I carry growing up as an Asian American. It feels like a lot of external validation. It has emboldened me to speak up more.” 

Even the experience of shooting the movie itself sounds like a movie, when he tells the backstory. Getting the call from his agent that Marvel was interested. Having to sign a “crazy NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement),” so he, of course, couldn’t tell anyone, not even his family. Learning that the shoot was happening in Australia, in 2020, during the still-darkest months of the pandemic, and the hoops he had to go through to even get “tested” (when tests were still hard to snag). Not getting the results in time, and almost missing the flight.

“Just going into the airport was so surreal, because they had plastic wrap on everything. I don’t think there were a lot of international flights at the time. So I flew to Australia; it was a 15-hour flight. Once we landed, I was put into a separate holding area and then after that, the Australian military came to escort us onto a bus that took us to a quarantine hotel...”

Regardless, he calls the experience on-set — when he finally got there — pretty incredible.“Everyone was so supportive,” including the star of the film with whom he, of course, shares a surname — Simu Liu. Asked if he is ever confused for him — the name, plus the whole all-Asians-look-alike trope — Daniel laughs. “I wish more people would mistake me for him,” he quips.

復修教堂 打造理想居

沒有聽過Paisley這小鎮？最初Daniel也沒有。Paisley是距離多倫多大約2.5小時車程，被兩條河圍繞的小鎮，是水天一色的好地方。當他們一遊此地參觀一座教堂的時候，就對它一見鍾情。最動人的是教堂前面兩條河環繞的美景，川流不息，Daniel說：「兩條河像是代表着我和Madison， 無懼不同挑戰，互相扶持成長，提醒我們要好好珍惜對方。」

小教堂建於1860年，可以說得上是古建築， 要將它復修重建需要花大量金錢及時間。不過，因其房價遠低於Daniel的預算，省下來的金錢可投放到重修工程，室內的設計就由嚮往設計的Madison操刀，而愛好木工的Daniel將負責監工及動手一些輕巧的修建，一同打造心目中的美好家園。

2021年中裝修尚未開始，雖然室內餘未拆卸的一排排長櫈，一家三口已急不及待搬進新居，他們在大殿的木板上鋪好了床，而Jun則睡在另一處可以阻擋陽光及聲音的地方，後方800呎廚房的水槽就是Jun的臨時浴缸，一角一落物善其用。

One thing is for certain: he is the most famous person in Paisley (population 1000, more or less). Northwest of Toronto in Bruce County, it is where Daniel was readying to begin the restoration of their house when we spoke. “I would say 99% of the designs are done,” he says, adding that his vision was inspired a lot by the work of Kelly Wearstler, the celebrated decorator known for her canny mix-and-match and Hollywood Regency vibe. He recently watched her master class, and learned a lot.

The couple became interested in countryside living after they had baby Jun, right smack in the middle of the pandemic. Speaking feverishly about the place of congregation that is soon to become their dream home — which only came about after he and Madison were frustrated by housing prices in Toronto — he follows up with this revelation: “There were quite a few things that aligned almost magically for us in terms of the design of the space. The church is situated where two rivers converge here in Paisley. So I felt like there was something really special about that.” 

He sees this as a metaphor for his relationship with the woman he crossed paths with on a subway track, years ago, and for listening to his heart. “The way we work together... I feel like we really learned to blend our sensibilities and to rely on each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and to support each other in these ways. Like two rivers converging.”

幸福原來好簡單

兩位仍然在職的模特兒，當不在鏡頭前的時候，就會忙於打點剛剛開業的便利店，和默默耕耘自家的綠茶品牌Matcha Dive，徹徹實實地落地生根。

從鎂光燈下，五光十色的模特兒生活，返璞歸真在一個恬靜小鎮去展開家庭生活。是何其大的轉變，需要那麼多的勇氣！由始至終，對未知的前路Daniel 從未躊躇，全因為愛。

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