Sunny Chan Returns to TVB After Caring for Autistic Son for 1 Year
Veteran actor, Sunny Chan (陳錦鴻) attended the StarHub TVB Awards in Singapore on August 18th. Sunny took home the “My Favorite Character” award for his role in 2011’s Curse of the Royal Harem <萬凰之王> that night. He expressed his excitement for visiting Singapore again, “It is a very different feeling this time because it is for an awards ceremony! Since my graduation, I only won two awards; it happened both times in Singapore! The first time was in 1998 when I won ‘Best Actor’ for my role in Hold You Tight <愈快樂愈墮落> at the Singapore International Film Festival. The second time was this time!”
The 45-year-old actor added, “They asked me if I had time to come to Singapore for an award, and I said yes! I must come! I missed out the film festival last time because I didn’t know I would win an award!”
Returns to TVB After One-Year Hiatus
Sunny also revealed that he will return to TVB this September to film a Republican-era drama, Records of the Fifth Day Opening <初五啟市錄>, with Sonija Kwok (郭羨妮) and Raymond Wong (黃浩然). This will also be Sonija’s comeback drama after giving birth to her daughter in May 2012.
Autistic Son is Improving
A year and a half ago, Sunny discovered that his 5-year-old young son is autistic. His son was quiet, antisocial, and treated his parents as if they were transparent. His son also possessed slow learning abilities, “My son would believe that he understands what people are telling him when he really doesn’t. For example, if I say to him, ‘I am Chan Kam Hung’, he would probably only hear the ‘Hung’ and nothing else.”
After filming Curse of the Royal Harem last year, Sunny took a year off of work to take care of his son, who will enter his first year of primary school this fall. “My son could not speak a complete sentence. Normal children his age should be able to recite speeches by now.”
The patient Sunny spent every single day with his son, tutoring him in English, Chinese, and simple arithmetic. Although his son can now recite the information in his textbooks perfectly, he still has problems communicating with other people. Sunny said, “I want to have him know that learning can be really fun, which is why I will teach him different things every day. I consistently change our programs up to keep him interested. He has improved well. He improved a lot the past year, and I am very satisfied.”
Returns to TVB for Money
In September, Sunny will film Leung Choi Yuen’s (梁材遠) new Republican-era drama, Records of the Fifth Day Opening, with Sonija Kwok and Raymond Wong. Sunny laughed, “I need to get back to work because I ran out of money! Haha!” However, Sunny stressed that his son will still be his top priority, “I will spend the next few months filming. After that’s done, and I’ve earned enough to cover next year’s living cost. I will take another long break.”
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
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I’m glad to hear that Sunny’s son’s condition is improving every day. It’s tough having to care for an autistic child. Good luck to Sunny!
Yay, glad to see Sunny back!
“I will spend the next few months filming. After that’s done, and I’ve earned enough to cover next year’s living cost. I will take another long break.”
I’m surprised to hear a TVB actor say this. haha.
Sunny is not a greedy and materialistic person, he is quite a wisdomed person.
I agree with this.
Exactly! Sunny is such a great father and husband. His wife and son are truly lucky. I really hope to see him in more series since I have not seen him in a long long time and miss seeing him…
He reminds me of this saying 🙂
“Even if my fare is plain and my lifestyle austere, I still find pleasure in them. Riches and status unjustly attained are to me like floating clouds”
Confucius
Exoidus,
Sunny appears to be a very giving and patient father. Children’s outcome and successes in life can be directly attributed to the good foundation set by their parents. Wish Sunny’s son continues to improve.
Earlier, it was reported that Sunny opened his own restaurant, but in this article he said he is returning to acting for money. I doubt money is the central issue, as he doesn’t seem to be on tight financial conditions.
Jayne,
I think he was just joking abt money 🙂
He seems to really enjoy acting so it’s likely not purely abt money for him.
Suppose it good for his restaurant business to have his name exposed to the general audience as well.
Jayne, I think Sunny closed down his restaurant because he want to concentrate taking care of his son.
I agree that Sunny appears to really love acting and it is not only for money. If he did want only money then he would not stay with TVB since TVB does pay much.
Meant to say does “not” pay much.
I didn’t mean to imply that actors are greedy or anything. I meant that it’s surprising to hear someone say this since they don’t usually pay that well at TVB, so he probably has a decent contract with them that he can afford a year’s living on one series. It’s expensive to raise a kid!
The only thing that is truly surprising is that working a couple of months with TVB’s wages is enough! But okay, we tend to forget that even under TVB’s meagre wages, they are still above regular people.
Having kids is a lot of work…let alone to have a kid who is autistic. Glad things are getting better…..he’s kid probably doesn’t have a very severe case. Hope all is well…and best wishes to him and his family.
great daddy… must say i applaud him for getiing his priorities rght..
He sounds a lovely man and father. Great to hear that he is back in TVB series.
I love Sunny!! He’s very down to earth and I like the fact that he puts his family first over anything else!
Best luck to him and his family!
Love Sunny! He’s such a good family man!!
A+ Father 🙂
glad to hear his son is improving.. my son is autistic and has improved a lot. from what he is experiencing it happened to our family and we know how it feels.. its heartbreaking and very hard to do a lot of things for him as the¥ think different to us. try to keep sentences simple as its hard the child to process information given to him.. keep up the goof work sunny and family x
am happy tht your son is improving. patience is the key i think to dealing wth an autistic child.. every child is a blessing frm god.
He is such an admirable person and his acting is among the top 1% in TVB.
Hope to see him as a villain soon.
He is and his son is lucky to have such a good father. I hope that his son will learn to love him back as he gets older. Can’t wait to see him in another series… He is great in villian roles too.
Sunny is a very humble person. He’s 24hrs good father and a family man. Hope his son will improve more.
read this,
its about older man will more likely have autistic or schizophrenic
http://hollywoodlife.com/2012/08/22/new-study-father-age-autism-schizophrenia/#utm_source=copypaste&utm_campaign=referral
I have never been a big fan of Sunny. But I must impress by his love and patience towards his family. How many fathers would really contribute their times as much as him to the family?
Salute! Impressive! May sunshine always be with you 🙂
I don’t think Sunny is that good of an actor but I feel that he is genuinely good guy and I respect that, does anyone know if he is a contracted artist? Because I’ve never seen him attend any TVB anniversary awards nor nominated.
Sunny was never a remarkable actor but he sounds like a great father
welcome back sunny!
Exactly. Sunny’s acting is actually top notch, unfortunately he’s been saddled with horrible roles for years!
I like Sunny’s acting. I greatly admire and highly respect fathers who involve in their child’s life like Sunny.
It’s great that Sunny has been spending time with his son, but I also hope that he enrolls his son in speech classes so that his son can get better with a professional help along with family help.
I cannot wait to watch his serie with Sonija and Raymond Wong.
Exactly! Sunny is such a great father and husband