Crazy fans and strange suicides
Recently one case of a crazy stalker fan is making big waves in China. It's about Andy Lau (aka Liu Dehua), a Hong Kong singer and movie star, that I also really like and his fan Yang Lijuan, a 28 year old woman, that is obsessed by Lau for already 13 years. Her family spend up all their money to follow Lau and Yang also always tried to get close to Lau and talk to him. Last week she went with her parents to Hong Kong and even managed to attend a party with Lau and had a picture taken together with him. But she wanted to spend more time with Lau. The next day Yang's father committed suicide by drowning, leaving a 12 pages letter, in which he expressed his wish for his daughter to get a chance to have a private meting with Lau. The question is: Who is crazier? Yang Lijuan or her father? (he also wanted to sell one of his kidneys to raise money for her trips to Lau and he did sell their house fo this purpose)

This story ist just ridiculous and I agree with Lau's agency, in not giving Yang the opportunity to meet Lau privately. That would just support this stalker behaviour. Right now there is a discussion going on, who is responsible for this tragedy. Is it just the family's fault and problem, or has the media also to take over responsibility, because they have encouraged Yang Lijuan in her attempts to meet Lau.

You can read the full story here: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-03/29/content_839741.htm

When I read about this case in Chinese, I came across about to words, that are not found in a dictionary. One is the nickname for Andy Lau, here better so say Liu Dehua: 华仔 (Hua Zai). Hua is taken from his first name Dehua and Zai means guy or boy. I guess it is similar to the Japanese "kun".
Then I found the word 粉丝 (fen si), which literally means glasnoodle, but in this context the English word "fans".

Btw, talking about crazy suicide. Last week I also read a strange story about a fake suicide. A 26 year old Chinese woman, who always loved to make jokes and thought this would keep her marriage life fresh, shocked her husband on April 1st this year with faking having hanged herself. Her husband was calling police and neighbours for help, thinking that his wife was dead, but when police arrived, the wife burt out laughing, calling "April fool". The very understandable result of this action: Her husband is tired of her stupd jokes and wants a divorce now.