Margaret Chung: Highlighting the 'Mom' in Momentum 鍾麗淇：生命就是勇往直前
ENGLISH 英 : Deborah Lau-yu | CHINESE 中 : Ophelie C.
VENUE: The Parklane Hong Kong, a Pullman Hotel · ART DIRECTION: DEBORAH LAU-YU · Photographer: Karl Lam · VIdeographer: Alex SzeTo · Fashion direction & Styling: Bhisan assisted by Haley Chau · MAKEUP & HAIR: Lavinia Tang · Office team: Lilian mak
Most people know Margaret Chung as the Toronto-born actress who made her endearing debut in 1997 in the drama series Detective Investigation Files III as character 李思龍. At the time, she was a fresh face who won audiences over whenever she spoke Cantonese with her friendly Chinese-Canadian accent. So how did she then become the face of advocacy for families in Hong Kong with children with special needs?
The answer lies in her own journey as a working mom with two daughters, one of whom has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a chromosomal deletion condition with symptoms that include delayed growth and intellectual disability. “When you are younger, your drive is different,” Chung says. “But as you get older you realize you are responsible for more than just yourself. It’s not a good or bad change. It’s more of a shift in what you understand is your life’s purpose. The momentum I have today is now based on love for my family.”
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Her Hong Kong journey began in 1996, when she first signed a contract with Television Broadcasting Ltd. (TVB) to join an artist-training class in Cantonese, then a foreign but familiar language to her. She couldn’t speak Cantonese well, often uttering funny phrases that she brought with her from Canada, where she was born in 1976. She couldn’t even recognize her own Chinese name. At the time, artists from Canada were rare in the Asian entertainment industry. Chung says that Hong Kong was a culture shock. Due to the differences in language and culture, Chung had to put in more effort than others to be able to present coherently on screen. She had to get scripts translated to understand the storylines. She also had to memorize pinyin — the phonetic symbols for Chinese characters — in order to enunciate the dialogue. She encountered other linguistic challenges as soon as she exited the TV studio.
出生及成長於加拿大多倫多的鍾麗淇（Margaret），1996年回港加入無綫電視藝員訓練班，演出多部膾炙人口的電視劇，包括《刑事偵緝檔案III》李思龍一角。憑可愛的口音和充滿陽光的笑容俘虜無數觀眾。現實中，Margaret經歷大女Isabella患罕見基因病，仍能積極面對，並將之轉化成生命重要一課，更投入慈善工作惠及他人。大概是自小的家庭溫暖，以及從瑜伽修煉的身心智慧，賦予她無限力量，勇往直前。
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One time, as she stood outside the Sogo department store in Causeway Bay, Chung felt incredibly overwhelmed by the bustle of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds crisscrossing the road. It was in stark contrast to the carefree days of wandering the neighbourhood she grew up in, near the Scarborough Bluffs nature reserve in east-end Toronto. She had grown up in a slow-paced Canadian community as the daughter of Chinese parents who insisted that she and her two siblings speak Cantonese in the home. Chung looks back at her upbringing and laughs, remembering words and phrases that were completely mispronounced without correction from her mother.
In elementary school, she was the only student of Chinese descent. It wasn’t until high school, when she attended Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, that she met her first Chinese-Canadian friend. Chung then embraced her cultural heritage. In 1995, she competed in the Miss Chinese Toronto Pageant before deciding to move to Hong Kong to develop her career. Her mother supported her every step of the way, even flying with her to Hong Kong to see her properly settled. After much hard work and dedication, Chung gradually gained popular recognition through Hong Kong’s circuit of TV networks. “I don’t think that I am particularly strong,” she says modestly. “But once I decide to do something, I don’t give up. I try my best to move forward.”
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「我媽媽讓我知道，無論成績如何，她仍然會很愛我。」Margaret形容在多倫多的童年生活很快樂。父母很隨和，讓她與一兄一姊在健康無憂環境下成長，培養出豐足積極的心靈，應對生命的各種挑戰。
跟她聊起娛圈往事，不難發現她是一個堅毅不屈的人。當年膽粗粗簽約無綫加入藝訓班，廣東話不靈光，連自己的中文名也認不出來，成為當年娛圈少有的「竹昇妹」。由於語言文化差異，Margaret比其他人付出加倍努力，劇本要經翻譯才看得懂，記對白之餘更要背拼音，「雙皮奶」會說成「雙眼皮」，又常被同輩嘲笑口音；站在銅鑼灣崇光百貨外，面對超級繁忙的馬路，亦令她覺不知所措。在如此龐大的文化衝擊下，她咬緊牙關，憑努力在電視圈捱出知名度。她謙虛地表示：「我不覺得自己比別人特別堅強，只是一旦決定了做一件事，就不會放棄，並盡自己所能向前衝。」
After many years at TVB, Chung did just that — she moved forward. For her next career, she radically shifted gears, becoming a yoga instructor. She got into it in 2002, after meeting Almen Wong, a Chinese actress-turned-celebrity yoga instructor, while shooting a travel show in Australia. Wong told Chung about her Pure Yoga studio in Hong Kong and the benefits of hot yoga. Chung tried it herself and became hooked. After branching out into other forms of yoga and noticing herself becoming healthier, stronger and more adaptable as a result, in 2004 she decided to become a certified Pure Yoga instructor herself. “Practise with dedication and sincerity, and the rest will come,” is her class philosophy, and it has many followers. Today known in Hong Kong as an influential yogi, Chung credits yoga for opening many new doors and enabling her to prioritize her health and wellness, and be grateful for the blessing of becoming a teacher to others.
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In 2010, she took another big step when she married Ruggero Nardone, an Italian-born Hong Kong businessman specializing in consumer electronics. Married for 13 years, the couple has two daughters — Isabella and Michela — whom they raise the way Chung says she was raised herself, with warmth and careful guidance. “I want them to achieve things, but at their own pace and time. They’ll have my support. But they will also have to learn to walk by themselves.”
Margaret淡出娛樂圈後，投入瑜伽事業，婚後育有兩女，很自然地把動力集中在家庭上。大女Isabella患上罕見基因病，令她生命中出現另一難關。看着女兒無法走路，不時癲癇發作近一小時，須要召喚救護車送往深切治療部急救，又不時要進行大小手術；作為媽媽，她形容心痛得像「穿了一個洞」，同時也有崩潰嚎哭的時刻。當遇到其他特殊兒童家長的分享，卻為她帶來了窩心的啟示，她憶述有次在ICU門外不斷流淚，有個夜間護士分享說自己有一個患有天使綜合症的廿多歲女兒，成長中經歷過很多感人的小奇蹟、正面的事情。當時Margaret不明白，問她這樣的情況有何正面可言? 那位護士說：「你無法想像當我的女兒第一次從紙巾盒抽出紙巾時，我有多興奮，因為她發展遲緩，能夠做出如此微小的動作已是很了不起。」聽罷那位護士的分享，Margaret亦學會收拾心情，珍惜所有。
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Love remains a core family value and it has helped the couple through some tough times. Their relationship was put to the test when their eldest daughter, Isabella, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder. Her condition opened up a new chapter in their lives, involving devastating episodes of hospital visits, seizures lasting up to an hour at a time, multiple surgeries, and other health complications. It’s been excruciating for the child, and emotionally draining for her parents. Chung looked around for a support group and came up empty. That’s when she made the startling discovery that in Asian culture, special needs children are often unheard and unseen. Disabilities are not often discussed. They tend to be viewed as a source of embarrassment, and so are often kept a family secret.
“You can't imagine how happy I was when my daughter was finally able to pull a tissue out of the tissue box. Because she had a developmental delay in her motor skills, it is remarkable to watch her accomplish even such a small movement,” said the ICU nurse. She shared this story about her 20 year-old special needs daughter to comfort Margaret, who was in the hospital for her own daughter’s emergency. The nurse’s experience was a tiny example of the little miracles that fuels hope and strength for the next day for parents of children with special needs.
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Realizing she had no one to turn to for comfort or advice, Chung did her own online research, eventually connecting with support groups in North America, where the rights of children with disabilities are better entrenched and protected. Her personal experience with a child with physical and mental disabilities, combined with her celebrity platform as a former actress, TV host and now popular yoga instructor spurred her to speak publicly on the topic to empower other families. She also launched a charity in Hong Kong, the nonprofit BEYOND Children’s Special Needs Foundation, which helps children with special needs by supporting families, providing resources and fostering inclusion. “I never wanted pity,” Chung says, explaining why founding a charity was important to her. “I just wanted a level of understanding.”
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「面對着一件明明很負面的事情卻要保持樂觀，是很難的。」Margaret表示同路人的互相支持更顯重要。她逐漸發現很多特殊需要小朋友的家長們有怨無路訴，於是她鼓起勇氣，與丈夫商量後，在Isabella四歲時向傳媒分享自身經歷，並創辦「Beyond」慈善基金，希望為家長提供一個發聲的平台，「原來只要真心誠意分享自己的故事，影響力是很大的。我們需要的不是別人的同情，而是大家的理解！」
She now has it. Since Chung founded BEYOND in 2014, other mothers with special-needs children have come forward to share with her their own experiences, not knowing who else to turn or talk to. Chung can relate to them as much as they can to her. As she knows too well, life with a child with a disability is inherently taxing. Chung describes it as a constant outpouring of energy. She says that sometimes she feels like she only has five minutes in a given day to catch her breath. It’s hard to be in a difficult situation and be positive 24/7. Chung gets through it by finding motivation through teaching yoga to kids with special needs. “Some might think they can’t do things with their bodies, but then they do, and they inspire you in ways that are just unbelievable,” she says, becoming emotional as she describes what she has experienced in the studio working with young bodies with inherent limitations — unhindered joy in the face of adversity. Some special-needs children can’t express themselves through words, plus they have a limited range of motion, making communication especially difficult for them. But with gentle coaxing and patience, those children often can execute a movement or give a gesture that shows others how they are feeling. Chung says that in those moments, she has seen children so exhilarated by what they managed to do, that all her own problems fade away. “Those kids really shift my mindset,” she says. “They make me think, ‘If they can do so much with so little, and be happy about it, then, who am I to complain?’ They inspire me.”
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「經歷這麼多的壓力和未知，實際會磨練我們變得更堅強。」Margaret指特殊兒童的純真和堅毅亦是支持她在艱難中堅持前行的動力來源。很多時大眾對特殊兒童會有一些假設，以為他們很多事都做不到。教他們瑜伽時，他們可能身體沒有反應，也無法用言語好好表達自己；但有時他們會突然做到某個動作或某些事情，表達自己的感覺，即使中間經歷過無數掙扎，他們依然保持快樂樂觀；眼見過特殊兒童的學習成長，改變了Margaret一直的思維模式「這不是因為『我同情你令我感覺好一點』，而是由心領悟 : 如果他們也可以對自己的生命及周遭事情都那麼開心、那麼感恩，我也一樣可以，我憑甚麼抱怨？」
「現在我對工作非常揀擇，所以有做的事情必須要有意義，我覺得我餘生的時間都要用來幫助他人。」Margaret的慈善基金規模雖小，但她相信，「只要幫助到一個有需要家庭生活得更好就已經很成功」。她由衷地希望加強公眾對特殊小朋友的理解、減少歧視、多聆聽家長們的難處，讓大家都有力量繼續勇往直前。
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