http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/13/content_12222315.htm
A A hero reborn -- Jet Li's world mission
www.chinaview.cn 2009-10-13 13:41:45 Print
by Xinhua writer Wu Chen
BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Li Lianjie refuses to strike a kung fu pose for photographers.
"I don't like violence at all," says the action movie star better known to English-speaking audiences as Jet Li.
The devout Buddhist has had an epiphany -- film-making is now just a hobby, and philanthropy is his career and life.
The turning point occurred in 2004, when Li and his family, holidaying in the Maldives, were caught in the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami.
"It's not like in the movies. The water just rose so fast. I picked up my 4-year-old daughter Jane and the baby-sitter got Jada, and we ran to the hotel (from the beach). The water was up to my waist, and a second later, it was up to my chest."
The experience made him realize the insignificance of his skills and achievements in the face of Nature's power.
"All the money and power in the world cannot save you from the waves. I had to do something...," Li says.
It was the culmination of seven years of studying Buddhist doctrine and travelling the world looking for a meaning to his life.
After talking with his wife, former Hong Kong actress Nina Li Chi, he donated 500,000 Hong Kong dollars to tsunami-affected people in a charity show made by celebrities in Hong Kong and put another 500,000 into setting up a charitable foundation.
The One Foundation, formally established in 2007, is based on the notion that if each person donates at least 1 yuan a month, the individual donations can be transformed into a much greater fund, Li says.
"I want to spread the idea that not only millionaires, celebrities and leaders, but each individual shares the responsibility to help others. We just need to offer help within our abilities," he says.
More than a million volunteers have since registered on the One Foundation website, donating their money or time.
Disaster relief is one of its main causes and it gave 78 million yuan for relief and reconstruction after last year's May 12 earthquake in southwest China.
It plans to train a professional fast-response relief team of 400 volunteers to help official relief organizations.
Li uses every opportunity to talk about the foundation, but the very concept of the foundation has prompted many to ask exactly how much Li himself contributes.
The answer is a private matter, he always responds. "'Donation competition' is not part of the One Foundation's concept."
He has another aim for the foundation, which also breaks new ground in Chinese concepts of charity: he wants to make it an enterprise, aimed at the social good, that is financially self-sustainable.
In a trial project, Qiang ethnic women in the quake zone were trained in traditional embroidery skills and helped to sell their products.
From a 4-million-yuan investment has come a profit of 10 million yuan, plus jobs for 7,000 women, whose monthly incomes have risen from 300 yuan before the quake to 700 yuan.
But the foundation is reluctant to take out the profit as the public will ask "How could you make money from quake survivors?" he says. "Chinese people jump to moral judgments."
He knows the charity must be properly managed as a corporation. The foundation has invited audits by accounting firms Deloitte and KPMG to do audits. Quarterly progress reports are issued on its website to let the public know where every yuan goes.
His "Philanthropy Awards" are setting new standards for charities in China and helping international donors find suitable organizations for cooperation.
"We want a platform for the better development of domestic non-governmental organizations," Li says.
"Credibility, professionalism, execution and sustainability" are listed as the award standards, and experts, journalists, consultants, legal and financial professionals are invited to vote.
Seven organizations, including the Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women, which provides rural women with education, training and guidance, and Liangshan Yi Nationality Women and Children Development Center, were selected last year. One Foundation gave them 1 million yuan each to support their development.
He attributes his global vision to the experience of traveling abroad when he was very young as a national champion of wushu, an acrobatic form of kung fu.
Born in 1963 in Beijing, Li is the youngest of three boys and two girls. His father died when he was two, and the family struggled.
Li was selected for wushu training when he was eight. Natural talent and hard training earned him five consecutive championships at the Chinese Wushu Games from 1974 to 1978. He began traveling the world with the national team in 1974, and the first stop was the United States.
He still remembers the culture shock. "There was only one kind of ice cream in China, but in America, there were more than 60."
He realized the outside world was different from what he had been taught.
"I asked myself why most of our 'friends' (African countries) were poor while our 'enemy' (America) was so rich?"
His fame came with his debut role in Shaolin Temple, the first Chinese movie in which all the actors practised real martial arts.
It took more than 100 million yuan at the box office at a time when a ticket cost just 0.1 yuan. The obscure temple, in the forests of central Henan Province, also gained fame as the cradle of Chinese kung fu.
However, as leading actor and a national Wushu practitioner, Li earned a daily "salary" of just 1 yuan.
A sense of unfairness that his earning didn't reflect his work persuaded him to migrate to America in 1988.
From 1989 to 1999, he cooperated with Hong Kong directors to make series of movies, playing almost all the famous traditional Chinese kung fu masters (in history or legend), becoming a leading Asian action star.
In his Hollywood debut, he sacrificed his hero image to play a villain for the first time in "Lethal Weapon 4" in 1998.
"Hollywood is such a big market. I think every actor may dream to take part in," he says.
Other hits followed: Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2: The Grave, and Danny the Dog.
In 2002, he starred in Chinese director Zhang Yimou's Hero for a reported 10 million U.S. dollars.
But recently, the icon of Chinese culture fell from grace in the eyes of many of his countrymen when he took Singaporean citizenship. Many critics overlooked the fact that he had taken U.S. nationality 20 years earlier.
"Now I am embracing the earth to look at the world," says Li, stressing his roots. "Mandarin is forever the language I speak best and Jiaozi is always my favorite food."
He insists he does what he thinks is right. He knows the "Philanthropy Awards" selection may be a thankless task, and the public may not appreciate the importance of their work, but he will keep at it.
"My life ended when I was 40 years old as I have nothing to pursue in this world. I need no more money nor fame. The rest of my life I live for the whole world."
Editor: Li Xianzhi
