Mandopop diva Faye Wong (left, centre) was seen in the audience supporting her daughter Leah Dou (right) on Nov 30. Photos: AQ/Xiaohongshu, Leah Dou/Weibo
Mandopop diva and 1990s It Girl Faye Wong has largely retired from the spotlight, but the 55-year-old was spotted at daughter Leah Dou’s concert in Beijing on Nov 30.
On videos posted on Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu, the famed Chinese singer can be seen holding lightsticks and waving them while seated in the audience.
When Dou asked to take a photograph with the crowd, Wong shot her hands up but quickly crouched down shyly after the audience called out her name.
Dou herself gave a shout-out to her famous mother. The 27-year-old singer-songwriter, who has been touring several Chinese cities with her Out Of The Loop concert tour, covered Wong’s song You’re Happy, So I’m Happy (1997) during her Beijing show.
The tour will come to Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands on Jan 18, 2025, marking her first performance here.
In videos of the Beijing concert taken by fans, she said, “Beijing is my home, so it holds special meaning”, right before covering the song.
Netizens on Chinese social media sites commented that Dou inherited her mother’s distinctively dreamy vocals. One netizen even joked that her voice is “very filial”, as it resembles her mother’s so much.
The choice of You’re Happy, So I’m Happy seems to hold a deeper meaning for the mother-daughter pair.
The song is from the first album Wong released after she gave birth to Dou and is widely regarded as a song dedicated to her daughter. Wong sang the song at a 1998 concert while videos and pictures of Dou as a toddler played on a big screen. Dou also harmonised with her mother on that song at a concert Wong held in Shanghai in 2016.
Dou is Wong’s child from her first marriage to Chinese rocker Dou Wei, which ended in 1999.
Wong has another daughter, 18-year-old Li Yan, from her second marriage to Chinese actor Li Yapeng. Wong split from Li in 2013 and has since rekindled her romance with Hong Kong star Nicholas Tse, whom she first dated in the early 2000s.
Wong, who sings in both Mandarin and Cantonese, is one of the most popular singers of her generation, with hit songs such as Red Beans (1998) and Eyes On Me (1999) – the theme song for the video game Final Fantasy VIII.
She also sang the Cantonese version of Irish rock band The Cranberries’ Dreams, which was released in 1994 as part of the soundtrack for the Wong Kar-wai movie Chungking Express. It starred Wong alongside Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Japanese star Takeshi Kaneshiro and Taiwanese screen legend Brigitte Lin. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
