Pai Ping-ping

Pai Ping-ping
Chinese name 白冰冰 (traditional)
Chinese name 白冰冰 (simplified)
Pinyin Bái Bīngbīng (Mandarin)
Origin  Republic of China (Taiwan)
Born 17 May 1955
Keelung, Taiwan, Republic of China
Occupation Singer, Actress, Media personality, Social activist
Years active 1973-present
Spouse(s) Ikki Kajiwara(1979–1981, divorced)
Children Pai Hsiao-yen (deceased)
Official Website Pai Ping-ping Official Blog
This is a Chinese name; the family name is Pai.

Pai Ping-ping (Chinese: 白冰冰; pinyin: Bái Bīngbīng; born May 17, 1955 in Keelung, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese singer, actress, media personality and social activist.

Career

Born to an impoverished family in Keelung, Pai dropped out of formal education in her teenage years. In 1973 she won a prize in a singing contest held by Taiwan Television and following this success she pursued a career in the local entertainment business. In 1975 she moved to Japan to study singing and acting. At this time she had a relationship with Japanese comics writer Ikki Kajiwara and they later married. Their daughter Pai Hsiao-yen was born in 1980 but their marriage was quickly dissolved the next year after Kajiwara engaged in an extramarital affair and committed domestic violence. Pai Ping-ping had to return to Taiwan and raised Hsiao-yen as a single mother. Since mid-1980s, Pai has been gaining popularity for her bantering style, becoming one of the best-known Taiwanese entertainers. Richard Lloyd-Parry of The Independent described Pai as the "Cilla Black of Taiwan".[1] Besides her entertainment career, Pai also had significant investments in local catering service industry.

In 1997 Pai Hsiao-yen, then 16 years old, was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. This event subsequently made the elder Pai into a social activist to advocate the use of death penalty; Pai founded the Swallow Foundation and chaired it to date to advocate capital punishment as well as provide legal support to local crime victims. Lloyd-Parry described the attention around the murder of Pai's daughter as giving Pai "a greater, though more terrible, fame than she had as an entertainer."[1] In 2010, in the wake of the global anti-capital punishment movement, Pai successfully held a protest against former ROC Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng, resulting in Wang's resignation and the resumption of executions in the Republic of China.[2]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Lloyd-Parry, Richard. "Celebrity killings stir rage in Taiwan". The Independent. Sunday July 13, 1997. Retrieved on December 12, 2009.
  2. "Taiwan justice minister resigns over death penalty". BBC. Friday March 12, 2010. Retrieved on September 6, 2011.

External links