{jcomments on}
Someone made a great effort in comparing my stories with interviews Barbara gave. By doing this the writer is trying to find an explanation for Barbara's suicide. It is very interesting reading material and therefore I like to share it with you. I am very glad that Nelson took the trouble in translating it for me.
I am not sure who the original article author is. The author name is a nickname and I do not know whether that is the original author. This article has also been forwarded to many online forums by different people. It is hard for me to identify whom the original author is.
For those who are interested, I disagree with the final conclusion of the author.
Comments
Did Babara really make a call to Holland on her last night?!
Twice is enough, that should be noticed as emergency alert for her family to not let this thing will happen again in the future, thus they have to take some important steps. Lack of sleeps, loss of father figure, difficult relationship with the mother, being the only child, loneliness, break-up with the loved one, has no close friends, then suddenly in very short period of time she got the sudden fame that never occur in her mind. To someone who had mental issue, those really can be too much to handle
To be honest, in some ways, many parts of her story is something i can relate to.
That's why i'm interested to have the book.
I also felt that loss of father figure since my childhood, he's still alive but we as his daughters never felt his presence especially since we lost our mother when we were kids. She died of cancer. And then we had to move with our grandmother who has personality pretty much like BY's mother. Many bad moments we had, leave us pain that never heals til now, i had older sister who had depression in her 30s, the age of a mature woman but somehow she could not handle the break-up, her only lovelife that she ever had. Many friends & family saw that was just because of her lack of experience in love. Only me who realized what kind of burden has gone through her mind since we were kids.
If you want to share your life and compare it with Barbara's, I am willing to listen and comment. But we better do that by mail of FB-messenger. On this site the whole world can read it.
其实我们男人有一种喜欢高估自己在前女友心里的地位。懂中文的朋友可以看下这篇文章。女同志请进，女孩都忘不了自己的第一个男人吗？http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-funinfo-3012043-1.shtml
这位荷兰朋友，你其实也可以问下你现在的妻子，就是你的女友，是否还会经常想起自己和初恋或她的前男友，如果是的话，那我只能为你的爱情默哀三分钟了。
英语不好，但我明白rob肯定能知道我在说什么，只要他想知道。
Have you visited HK? Retrace her steps to try to understand what she had gone through while in HK because it seems you felt you had no idea about life in HK. I’m sure you would do it for a friend.
Did you watch all her tv programmes in one go? I’m you did in trying to understand her life a little bit. I’m sure you would do it for a friend.
Did both of you connect emotionally? Because it seems like a commentary of what you both did than about feelings and thoughts and plans, etc.
Did you read all those write-ups about BY before you started your website?
Still, I’m really glad you did this website. For whatever reason it helps people to understand her better because she died such a tragic death at such a young age when she had her bright career ahead of her.
I’m sorry for a whole lot of questions but they just keep popping up as I read. In fact, I can’t even remember all the questions.
You asked many questions and to be honest a lot of those questions I asked myself aswell. That is why I am writing a book now about our relation. In here I describe in much more detail our relation and you will find out what kind of person I really was. I hope this book will answer your questions about me and also about Barbara. But you will have to be patient, writing a book like that takes time.
Did you bring your ‘family’ to re-visit the past? Don’t you keep your individual relationships private from each other in respect of the persons involved?
Did the difficulties that you both had to overcome to see each other come across to you as an adventure or something that meant a lot you.
Do you realize your feelings for BY was completely different from your feelings for M? Seems to me one is puppy love and the other is mature love.
Do you think BY had a lot of regrets that led to her wanting to give up having to live the despair? As she must have grown up a bit and matured a bit more while in HK and she realized you were both not on the same step from the very beginning and she realized how silly she was. And suddenly she realized she was actually all alone all the while.
...tbc,
Did you worry for her those many years after you split up?
Did you try to check on her quietly to make sure she was alright since you know she was emotionally fragile and knew of her previous suicide attempts?
Did you bother to investigate about her suicide after you found out about it? Why wait till 2009?
And since you knew of her passing did you 'do the right thing' by visiting her mum and making sure she's alright till the end of life? You know very well how much her mother meant to her. Do you know the circumstances she was in now?
Do you really think you had no obligation for her well-being?
Why do you suddenly set up this website and visit her grave and also locations you both had visited in the past after all these years when it’s obvious that you had completely left your life in England behind?
..tbc
If the mother didn't think her daughter bethrothed to you she wouldn't have allowed her daughter to go on a holiday with you. In the 70's that was already testing her principals. She must have struggled hard with herself. It looks like she and her family took this relationship a lot more seriously than you and yours.
Honestly, when you met BY and when you were with her, did you ever have the same feelings which you described when you met M? Any at all?
Would you be proud or remorseful if her last words were really meant for you?
Since you both had so many friends from Cambridge days, no one could help you find BY when you went looking for her after you had moved back to ND? The easiest way is to ask a lady and respectable friend to go and ask BY’s mother by pretending she was looking for BY? But what’s the point, maybe more heartache for her.
I believed some of the things she said wasn't exactly a lie but something she believed in so she was trying to re-affirm it to herself. However, she also knew that she couldn't be the good daughter because of her love for you. Maybe she regretted wasting her time and energy on people who did not really feel the same way?
Maybe because you came from a very different culture. 'If you're happy together, not happy just split'. If a chinese girl does not think herself bethrothed to you she wouldn't spend so much time with you. Not in the way that a westerner dates.
Her mother was just doing her job to protect her daughter. Maybe she had foreseen this ending that’s why she tried to prevent it. Maybe she could see that it was only puppy love for you (or maybe even just a novelty) but her daughter took it too seriously for her own good?
It’s a nice documentary. But it would be better if there were more input about your feelings and thoughts instead of just a commentary.
I just wonder, did you look back and search the bottom of your heart to understand if you did not take advantage of her vulnerability? Was she really important to you?
..tbc
So well relationship problems could have been the cause, I find it highly plausible that it could have been work related issues such as stress, lack of sleep which led to her ending of her life.
Look at Leslie Cheung who had battled with his depression for almost 20 years till he took it no more so he chose to plunge to death despite being comforted and encouraged by his gay lover.
Now with that being said, this is the furthest extend to which I can agree with the author. No one person or event should be blamed as the single reason for Barbara’s death. There are complex layers and levels of emotional and neurological factors that can contribute to suicide. If the author believes it was unfair for Kent Tong to suffer the crucifixion over Barbara’s death, then the author should also consider it unfair to over-simplify the cause for Barbara’s death.
I have no problem with most of the author’s deductive process. But the definitive conclusion that he gave in the last paragraph, using the phrase “definitely committed suicide…for” (就是为了…而死) is not what I can agree with.
I agree with you. As Barbara said herself that she would never commit suicide for love. I still don't understand why people don't accept that. Maybe the truth didn't fit the romantic image of Barbara that was build up by the media.
I think there are 2 things to consider. One is that with Barbara being a beloved star to so many people, her fans may feel the need to have some sort of closure after her death.
Another thing is that suicide is still a stigmatic topic amongst most Chinese people. It's not openly discussed about and it's not looked upon with much attempted understanding.
So, in a way, as fans, we might feel that a simple, romanticized cause to Barbara's suicide is the closure that we all need. And we would rather accept a romantic reason to her death than to look at all other realistic, yet complicated causes.
Most of Barbara's fans are now at the parenting age. And maybe your website will encourage all of us to look at our own teenage children, and hopefully start some dialogue with our kids about romance, relationships, depression, and suicide.
Your last sentence sums up in short the reason why I want to write this book. I have received many mails from people who partly recognised their own life in these stories.
My book is not about the star Barbara, but about a young girl who is trying to find happiness while struggling between two very different cultures in a strange country.
Thank you for all that you do.
I have to say I really chuckled at the final conclusion of the author. Why did she wait for 3 years then committed suicide for the badly love of rob? Makes no sense to me.