Why the big fuss over the suicide comedian guy? (Ni Min-jan)

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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The Taiwanese comedian Ni Min-jan passed away, the Et TOday website informs us. Well, he didn’t just pass away. He hung himself from a tree in Ilan, after his mainland CHinese girlfriend told him to choose her or his local Taiwanese wife (his second wife after divorcing first). He had never told her about ‘‘the wife’’ before. Well, he said they were divorced. So he chose death.

ettoday.com/2005/05/09/11195-1788248.htm

Now it’s big big news story on TV every day for a week, 24/7.

What’s the big deal about him? I don’t get it. he wasn’t that great a comedian, nobody ever paid attention to him until he started crossdressing as Annette Lu and he deserves an Emmy for that act, it was great, but other than that, he wasn’t so important to Taiwan culture.

So why is his death, his “passing” such big news on TV and in the local papers here. He chose the coward’s way out of his problems, and now he’s a hero. What’s wrong with this picture?

QUOTE: "To commemorate one of the greatest Taiwanese comedians, his friends composed a song dedicated to him and will perform it at his funeral. Yesterday, friends of Ni Min-jan gathered for a rehearsal, and all of them couldn

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Yet another reason to thank my lucky stars I don’t have cable.

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If Barry Humpries comitted suicide in Australia, it would be huge news down under for ages too. He is better known for his Dame Edna Everage character yet has many alteregos. I wonder how many funerals he would have?

Let’s face it, the media is hung up on negativity and suicidal celebrities make great stories.

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It’s ironic someone mentioned Teresa Deng Li-juen, since it’s a few days past the 10th anniversary of her untimely death. :blush:

I don’t feel sorry for this Ni cretin. He copped out to “save face.” :loco:

Too bad there’s no such thing as heaven or reincarnation and he basically took a punk-ass-beetch way out. :fume:

Taiwanese media, be it dead celebs or a 1 alarm garbage fire - prey on anything to get the lurid interests of the simple minded viewers to tune in. It is the worst in the world, making really bad garbage from the U. S. almost seem immaculate.

Now, let’s take a moment to reflect upon the fact that the intelligence pool of Taiwan has upped a few points now that one less ethically challenged bozo is gone. :raspberry:

In all honesty, however, I’d rather have Ni around than Annette Lu and her race-bating boss, Da-bien. :s

God, I miss Teresa Deng.
:blush:

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God, I miss Teresa Deng.
Amen. I used to have a couple of cassettes. She sang just as well in Japanese as in Chinese. I had a song called Hong Kong Hong Kong in both versions.

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How do you exactly save face ?

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in taiwan,the death of a star is big business for other stars. they can be seen crying at his grave, singing at his funeral, etc. then next week, you’ll see the news of their new album! what a freaking coincidence!
i used to respect tsai ching, but no more. how morbid can you get- using somebody’s death to further your career? bai bing bing used the aniversary of her own daughter’s death to boost her career back. she even had reporters come out to the grave while she sang.
then you’ve got your 'benefit concert" in his 'honor".

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[quote=“rantheman”]in Taiwan,the death of a star is big business for other stars. they can be seen crying at his grave, singing at his funeral, etc. then next week, you’ll see the news of their new album! what a freaking coincidence!
I used to respect tsai ching, but no more. how morbid can you get- using somebody’s death to further your career? bai bing bing used the aniversary of her own daughter’s death to boost her career back. she even had reporters come out to the grave while she sang.
then you’ve got your 'benefit concert" in his 'honor".[/quote]

Anything to make a buck, anything for free publicity, use your “friends” (the common mistranslation of “Peng You”) even in their graves…welcome to Taiwan!

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I heard that after news of this came out, it propelled others to commit suicide in Taiwan?? So there’s been a dozen or so other deaths following this?

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i can’t take this anymore!!! i have the whole memorial live on TTV right now! here’s proof that the church, the government,and the whole entertainment industry are too close to each other. all this loser did was have church affliation and he’s okay. probably got on "good’ TV too. i know one guy on “good” TV who told me fuck you! now they’re using the guy’s life as an invitation to accept Christ. on live TV. hope it works, cause they’re looking pretty sappy and stupid.

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According to my parents-in-law, Ni Min-jan was really a pioneer in Taiwan TV entertainment. Back when TV first started and there were three stations, taxis would pull over and find a public TV to watch the show when it came on. Ni Min-jan was described by fatherinlaw as a Taiwanese Bob Hope-cum-Charlie Chaplin. Ni Min-jan also created and popularised many fun sayings and they became part of daily conversation, like “Xiang Nao Jing”… children at that time were always copying him. In time, other shows took over and he went into other areas of entertainment. They said that the TV show with him and Jung Fei etc (the five comedians) brought great joy and laughter to their lives all those years ago. So, we see the Annette Liu impersonations and think, no big deal, who is this guy? But, people here are shocked that someone who brought them such laughter for so many years has commited suicide.

Rantheman, I’m watching the concert too and I don’t see any call for us to join the church. That guy suffered deep depression years ago and the church helped him through it and now he is studying to be a priest. Don’t you think that’s nice? And I don’t see how singing a religious song is pushing us all to convert, if the guy wants to sing Hallelujah, why can’t he? TV is great, it has an OFF switch!

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[quote=“asiababy”]According to my parents-in-law, Ni Min-jan was really a pioneer in Taiwan TV entertainment.[/quote]IOW, he was one the guys who brought the beef show to TV, with added whoopee cushion sound effects and canned laughter. The format which lasts until this day, two ‘comedians’ on stage with some aspiring bimbo singer, they bully and humiliate her with smutty ‘jokes’ for 10 minutes and then sing another old song.

About as entertaining as listening to paint dry, but louder.

I wish the other perpetuators of this genre would hurry up and join their buddy and then maybe the industry as a whole could move on. Or is that too much to hope for?

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Old talentless coward with young family commits suicide after being dumped by mistress.

You should have read his 16-year old daughter’s internet post to her dad (published in the Apple Daily). The bit where she asks “what about the time when you said you were going to walk me down the aisle and give me away to the person who would make me happy forever…?” would bring tears to a stone.

Yeah, a celebrity suicide, very glamourous. Like the Smith’s song “…and on their hands a Dead Star…”

And all those copy-cat suicide wankers? WTF is that about? The difference between you lot and him is that he left a young family behind. Shouldn’t be having kids in your 50s if you’re an emotional suicidal wreck, perhaps?

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not to be off topic, but the church in taiwan are morons. i say this being a believer in Christ. they jump on every little bandwagon they can. they’ve let these stars infiltrate Good TV, so real Christian artists don’t have a shot. they’ll take anybody that says ‘im a christian’ cause they need some ‘tokens of God’s Grace in Taiwan’. but the fact is these artists are just using Christianity to support their has-been careers.that in my book, as deplorable as some of you christians on this website might find me, is even more deplorable. sorry to his family and that’s all.

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Jack, you heard wrong. There have been no other deaths following this. But there are social welfare reporters from around the world that say that when local media focus on suicides, the suicide rate in most countries spikes a bit for a few weeks after. So this could happen here, too. But so far, it has NOT happened.

Meanwhile, the suicide tears show goes on and on, all channels cutting between Soong in China and the “stars” singing for the dead comedian. Maybe it will be over today.

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Ha, now I see what was going on at noon at work.
Normally, the locals are having lunch…around the TV set and discussing loudly.

Quiet different today. Atmosphere was “loaded” (yep due to the rain also I guess) but not one soul was looking with open mouth to the guy crying on TV about the dead of this star.They al acted as this was non-important.

How not to loose face in front of a foreigner…

Luckely we are not in Korea. Over there things are way out of control when a star commits suicide.

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I really don’t want to speak ill of the dead…so have toned it down, but…

I’d like to know whether this has stimulated discussion on the Mainland mistresses issue-hundreds of thousands of TW men have used their advantageous buying power to get mainland mistresses, causing their TW wives/families untold heartache.

There are still many good TW men, but the number of spoiled selfish guys is sad to see. Many of them do not help TW society grow in positive ways. :stinkyface:

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Well, there is already fighting over the rights to some performance this Ni guy signed over to his mistress so she could perform it in China.

From what I can see the mistress told him to choose his wife and family, or her, so he topped himself.

A tawdry little story. But very sad for his family of course.

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[quote=“asiababy”]According to my in-laws, Ni Min-jan was really a pioneer in Taiwan TV entertainment. … Ni Min-jan also created and popularised many fun sayings and they became part of daily conversation, like “Xiang Nao Jing”… children at that time were always copying him. …So, we see the Annette Liu impersonations and think, no big deal, who is this guy? But, people here are shocked that someone who brought them such laughter for so many years has commited suicide.

[/quote]

Thanks for that, asiababy, that explains alot of why the media have been following this supersuicide funeral story 24/7/365. True, most of us only knew him as the Annette Lu impersonator, we didn’t know the backstory. Now understand better.

And this:

taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003254197

The CHina Post had a good editorial today that explained the funeral hoopla too, and then the newspaper added:

“In honor of Ni’s achievements, the KMT has given a medal of honor to his family.”

So not only is the church getting mileage on this, I think Ni was half Christian and half Buddhist, because there was a weird looking statute of Jesus on one of the funeral parlors, he actually looked like Ni a bit, and of course, suicide is a very Christian thing to do, I guess. But now even the KMT is getting into the act, no pun intended, and giving his family a medal after he commits suicide for adultery.

Love this country!

But asiababy, with your backstory, it is very understandable. He was a symbol of something very powerful and emotional in Taiwan life.

Every country has to mourn its own artists in its own way. Obviosuly, the tragic death of Ni has struck a chord here. It’s interesting.

Would have been better if he had remained alive until his natural death, but this is what God has in store for him, I guess. His 16 year old daughter is devastated, as is his son, as is his wife, as are his fans, as are his fellow actors.

Thanks asiababy for explaining this. Makes sense now.

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Cola,

I haven’t really been following the English media’s coverage on this story, so I don’t know if they reported Ni’s battle with depression, and the fact he had another suicide attempt two years ago, which was not made public at the time.

I’m not condoning affairs and I don’t really fully understand his relationship situation so I make no judgement, but my understanding is that people who have affairs and lose property to their girlfriend usually cope and come through, and if people commit suicide they usually have some more deeply-rooted mental-health problem. Do you think it’s fair for us to say simply:

[quote]21p wrote:
Old talentless coward with young family commits suicide after being dumped by mistress. [/quote]

Slightly off topic, but with so many Forumosans suffering from depression, I thought maybe people could show just a little more compassion toward the man and the family.

Whilst some of us might see the tribute as a chance for the stars to get more airtime, we should also remember that Ni helped many of those stars in the beginnings of their careers (Jung Fei is one example), and that they may indeed genuinely feel the great loss of a friend.

My motherinlaw also told me stories that illustrate how innocent Ni was when it came to business etc (for example, his attempt to import coffee from Japan; he was asked what kinds of cans did he want to manufacture, thin or thick, he just thought, well thicker must be better… and the result was a mass of exploding coffee cans throughout Taiwan’s stores). It seems to me the Taiwan public did share in his life.

Hopefully, some good will come out of his death - a renewed focus on mental health issues in Taiwan perhaps? And, from the article you posted from Taipei Times, it seems people are becoming more aware of the responsibility media should have toward the public.

And about the writing a song in his honor thing… does anyone remember “Candle in the Wind” for Princess Diana"? (And CNN’s ENDLESS coverage of that fiasco, come to think of it, and the books and the documentaries and the…)… not only in Taiwan… it’s a world-wide phenomenen.