Pai Hsueh-hua (born 17 May 1955), born Pai Yueh-o, better known by her stage name Pai Bing-bing (also spelled Pai Ping-ping), is a Taiwanese singer, actress, media personality and social activist.

Life and career

Born to an impoverished family in

Keelung Keelung ( ; zh, p=Jīlóng, c=基隆, poj=Ke-lâng), Chilung or Jilong ( ; ), officially known as Keelung City, is a major port city in northeastern Taiwan. The city is part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area with neighboring New Ta ...

, Pai dropped out of formal education in her teenage years. In 1973, she won a prize in a singing contest held by

Taiwan Television Taiwan Television Enterprise, Ltd. ( zh, t=臺灣電視公司, p=Táiwān Diànshì Gōngsī, poj=Tâi-ôan-tiān-sī-kong-si), commonly known as TTV and formerly known as Central Television and Voice of Taiwan, is the first terrestrial televisi ...

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 , known by the pen names and , was a Japanese author, manga writer, and film producer. He is known for the work about sports and martial arts, with images of heroic young men with the occasional fine details as he moves from one topic to anoth ...

and they later married. Their daughter

Pai Hsiao-yen Pai Hsiao-yen (; 23 June 1980 – 18–20 April 1997) was the only daughter of popular Taiwanese television host and actress Pai Bing-bing and Japanese author Ikki Kajiwara. In April 1997, Pai was Kidnapping, kidnapped, held for ransom, and mu ...

was born in 1980 but their marriage was quickly dissolved the next year after Kajiwara engaged in an

extramarital affair An affair is a relationship typically between two people, one or both of whom are either married or in a long-term monogamous or emotionally-exclusive relationship with someone else. The affair can be solely sexual, solely physical or solely em ...

and committed

domestic violence Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes r ...

. Pai Bing-bing had to return to Taiwan and raised Hsiao-yen as a

single mother A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include death, divorce, break-up, abandonment, bec ...

. 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 ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' described Pai as the "

Cilla Black Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), better known as Cilla Black, was an English singer and television presenter. Championed by her friends the Beatles, Black began her career as a singer in 1963. Her singles "A ...

of Taiwan".Lloyd-Parry, Richard.
Celebrity killings stir rage in Taiwan
. ''

''. Sunday 13 July 1997. Retrieved 12 December 2009. 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." In 2010, in the wake of the global anti-capital punishment movement, Pai successfully held a protest against former

Minister of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

Wang Ching-feng Wang Tsing-fong (; born 1 January 1952 in Tainan City) is a Taiwanese lawyer and politician. Education Wang graduated from the Taipei First Girls' High School and received her bachelor's and master's degrees in law from National Chengchi Uni ...

, resulting in Wang's resignation and the resumption of executions in Taiwan.

Filmography

Film

Television series

References

External links

*
The Swallow Foundation
(in Traditional Chinese)
Pai Bing-bing Official blog
(Traditional Chinese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Pai, Bing-bing 1955 births Living people Musicians from Keelung Taiwanese film actresses Taiwanese television personalities Taiwanese television actresses Taiwanese Hokkien pop singers 20th-century Taiwanese actresses 21st-century Taiwanese actresses Japanese-language singers of Taiwan Taiwanese Buddhists Taiwanese Mandopop singers 20th-century Taiwanese women singers 21st-century Taiwanese women singers 21st-century Taiwanese singers Actresses from Keelung Taiwanese opera actresses