A round of applause is probably one of the best ways to compliment an actor but veteran actress Josephine Siao Fong-fong, due to hearing problems, no longer enjoys it.
At the Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony on April 19, Siao (above) told the audience after receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award that when actors can no longer hear the applause, their career is pretty much over.
'When people clap, my ears hurt. The noise gives me serious tinnitus and it stays in my head for days,' she explained, adding she was still trying to recover from the trauma of attending the award ceremony two weeks ago. 'I can't get to sleep until nine in the morning.'
She was only six years old when she won her first round of applause, for her role in Lee Fa's Tears of a Young Concubine. 'All I had to do was run into the arms of an auntie and read a line. I can't remember the line but [the staff] tried so hard to teach me.
'When I did it, everyone on set gave me a big round of applause,' she said. 'That was kind of bad because it triggered my vanity.'
That vanity kept her in the business for more than five decades. Siao starred in more than 200 roles, including her favourite playing a blind girl in Patrick Lung Kong's Window in 1968. Now she concentrates more on her role as president of the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation (ECSAF), which she founded in 1998.
On the night of the award ceremony, Siao, 62, made a rare public appearance, dressed in a stunning Barney Cheng Siu-leung evening gown. Using sign language she wished happiness to the deaf. But despite admirable poise, she was in a lot of pain.