Her last acting work was in 2018 in the TVB drama Justice Bao: The First Year. Chan says motherhood has changed her priorities in life.

“I have to prioritise my children and family over work,” she says. Chan recently launched her own beauty product brand, Snow Queen, and it gives her time to be with her sons. “I want to spend more time with them. That’s also why I started Snow Queen last year so I can work from home. Seeing my boys grow up and being with them every step of the way makes everything incredibly worthwhile.”

Chan, 30, who was crowned Miss Hong Kong in 2013 after graduating from a media course at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, married actor Kevin Cheng Ka-wing, who is 22 years her senior, in 2018. Their two sons, Rafael and Yannick, were born in 2019 and 2020.

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Chan says in spite of her husband’s busy work schedule, they always go out of their way to spend quality family time with their children. “We like to play with the kids. We always bring them to parks, go to new places and try new restaurants,” she adds.

Before her hiatus from show business, Chan starred in many series for Hong Kong broadcaster TVB, including Overachievers (2014), Raising the Bar (2015), Captain Of Destiny (2015), Blue Veins (2016) and Brother’s Keeper II (2016).

She says making Blue Veins was the most enjoyable, as she met her future husband on set as well as several good friends. “We got to travel to Holland,” she says. “We had so much fun.”

Chan made her big-screen debut in Keyboard Warriors (2018), based on a real event – the highway cash spill in 2015 when an armoured vehicle’s rear doors opened on a road in Wan Chai, sending HK$15 million (US$1.9 million) in cash flying. Chan played a materialistic girl and says starring in a movie as opposed to a television drama was an interesting experience.

“People pay for a cinema ticket,” she says. “They want precision and details. We had a lot of time to think about how to act in each scene, how we are going to create a character verbally, trying different tones of speech, whereas in a TV drama, we had to film a lot in a short duration.”

The former actress has been portrayed as having a perfect life, having come from a well-to-do family, had an overseas education, won a beauty pageant, and married a successful man with whom she has two lovely kids. But Chan says she has had her share of ups and downs in life, with a bout of depression hitting her hard in university.

“I rarely talk about it, not because I try to avoid remembering the past, but because I would rather channel that past memory into something more positive,” she says. “When I was younger, I gave myself a lot of pressure to be better. My parents didn’t cause me any stress. It was just myself.”

She credited parental support and her Christian faith with her recovery. “During low points in life, I open the Bible and let myself be touched ... by words that the Lord speaks to me.”

Chan describes her decision to enter the Miss Hong Kong pageant as heaven-sent. “I had a calling to take a chance on the pageant, as it was something I always dreamed of as a little girl,” she says. “My faith is what kept me going in showbiz. It gives me this power which nothing and nobody else can replace.”

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As for her parenting philosophy, Chan says she just wants her children to be happy and to be good people. “To raise kids is already hard enough. We don’t want to pressure them into anything. Hopefully, we will be able to provide an environment that supports what they want to do as they grow up,” she says.

Chan turned 30 last month, which she calls a milestone in her life, and she says motherhood has given her a new sense of responsibility.

“I have to think about how I can be a role model to my kids. I hope being a mother is something that I really value and enjoy every day of my life,” she says.