Michael Wong Doesn't Like Being Called a Gweilo
The veteran actor may be Eurasian, but he’s known as the “stereotypical gweilo” of local cinema. He keeps his Hong Kong roots close to his heart, and talks about the language barrier, his showbiz career and his passion for the sky. Photo: Kirk Kenny / studiozag.com
I’ve been in Hong Kong since 1983. My brother and I were invited by Cinema City, the hot production company at the time. There weren’t that many Asian actors in Hollywood in the early 80s, unless Marlon Brando decided to play an Asian. [Film producer] Nansun Shi was the one who found my brother Russell’s picture in the only Hollywood agency at that time that handled Asian actors. Russell said he had five brothers, and a few of them wanted in as well. We met, and a month later we were on a plane to Hong Kong.
My father came from Shandong province [in northeast China]. He moved to Hong Kong, and from there went to America, seduced by the American dream. He met a gal there—my mother, whose family is French Canadian. My roots are in Hong Kong, but most people don’t realize that, because I’ve been known as “the gweilo from abroad.” It was a bit of a culture shock when I first came here.
I speak poor Cantonese and have never tried to improve it because language is just not my passion. More now than ever it bothers me. I kick myself because I would be able to speak Mandarin and Cantonese if I put any effort into it. I’m sure if you spent six months on building a foundation in a language, anyone could do it. It’s just like the piano—I’ve been trying to learn the piano for a decade, it’s just a matter of discipline. I lack discipline, unless it’s something I’m really passionate about.
A lot of directors and people in our industry ask if I’m improving [my language]—they want to hire me but they know the problem they’re gonna have on the set. That’s definitely affected that part of my life in the entertainment business. Maybe I should just go back to Shandong, stay there for a year and not speak a word of English.
I do identify myself as a Hongkonger. I’m more patriotic about Hong Kong and China than for the U.S. I’ve no identification with what’s going on there. I’m sure that, even though they haven’t mentioned it, kids in school refer to my daughters as “gwei mui.” I recently took them to visit their great-grandparents’ graves. It’s important to me to let them know where their family’s from, why they have the last name “Wong.” Regardless of what the world tells them: [Their roots] belong to them. As a father, it’s important for me to pass this to my children.
I’ve been called a gweilo pretty much every day for the past 33 years. Do I like it? No, not necessarily. I don’t think anybody likes it—it is a racial comment no matter how you say it. In the US, if a white guy calls a black guy a “n*gger,” there’s some deeper-rooted nastiness to it.