Crowds mourn 'Sister Fei' at funeral

Crowds mourn 'Sister Fei' at funeral

Hong Kong, local celebrities say goodbye to beloved performer
Yvonne Zacharias, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, February 28, 2008

BURNABY - In Asia, she was known affectionately as Fei-Fei or Sister Fei, an allusion to her rotund figure. Her real name in English was Lydia Sum or Lydia Shum. Her named was spelled both ways.

The funeral for the beloved actress and comedienne Wednesday drew a large police presence, a horde of journalists, both local and from Hong Kong, and a stream of shiny cars to the Forest Lawn cemetery in Burnaby.

Among those in the cars were her brother, Canadian fashion designer Alfred Sung; her daughter Joyce Cheng; Hong Kong composer Joseph Koo; and TVB general manager Stephen Chan from Hong Kong, whose television network broadcast the show Enjoy Yourself Tonight, which was hosted by Sum for several decades and beamed into millions of Asian homes every evening.
In a grey drizzle, the funeral party was a sea of dark suits dotted by white roses, which each guest wore in Sum's memory.

With her signature wing-tip, Coke-bottle glasses and poofy hair, Sum was a female version of an Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson, only much funnier. With her ability to think on her feet and play comic roles such as chorus girls or pillow-talk girlfriends, she endeared herself to many.

Her role as talk-show host put her in great demand to host big, glitzy fundraisers, both in Hong Kong and in Vancouver, where she has hosted the annual SUCCESS gala almost every year.

She was well known in Taiwan and in Singapore, where she anchored the sitcom Living With Lydia, and was cherished in every corner of China. Born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, she moved here in the mid-1980s.

She gave birth to her daughter here, but continued to spend much of her time in Hong Kong. In the end, she was buried here, in the same graveyard as her mother and father.

One look at her gravesite was all you needed to know that she enjoyed rock-star status in the Asian world. The site was a forest of flowers with messages mostly in Chinese and a few in English sprinkled here and there.

Included was a big bouquet of white roses and lilies from her ex-husband, Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng, who did not attend the service.

There was also a message reading "with all our love from your brothers and sisters." Sum, who died of liver cancer at the age of 60 in Hong Kong last week, had eight brothers and sisters.

The Forest Lawn chapel was filled to overflowing with more than 300 people in attendance. Media were barred from the service and kept at a distance with RCMP watching over them. They were allowed to visit the gravesite after the service.

The event was marred by the arrest of a young woman who was dragged yelling from the cemetery grounds. Const. Alexandra Mulvihill of the Burnaby RCMP said the woman got on the grounds as the driver of a car. She was arrested when she began taking pictures.

Mulvihill said she believed the woman was with a local news agency. She appeared to leave the grounds lying down in the back of a police cruiser. She was later released. Mulvihill couldn't say whether she had been charged.

Sum's family did not meet with media and requested they be kept out of the funeral, although a few were among the invited mourners.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper sent a message of condolence through his local candidate, Wai Young, who praised Sum as a role model for immigrants and as someone who was doing community service before it became popular to do so.

Most of the guests left the event in sombre darkened cars, but a few stopped to talk to media, creating a mob scene each time. Fairchild talk show host Anita Lee stopped to say that the event was very sad, but that she couldn't say more because of the family's wishes. TVB's Chan said he found the service moving.

Vancouver Coun. B.C. Lee described the service as very quiet and very touching. In addition to paving the way for new immigrants, Lee said Sum "lent her celebrity status for social and charity purposes. I think that social responsibility is something we all learned from her.