Edit: even less mysterious when she reappeared, although that invalidates most of what I wrote!
Hardly mysterious: she was "disappeared" by the authorities. Given the total lack of communication she is probably dead. We are no more likely to find out what happened than to find what really happened at Tiananmen. Perhaps in half a lifetime's time one of the survivors of the next revolution will tell us.
She pissed off the government by using 'yin-yang contracts' which is both illegal and tax evasion. Of course she's not the only one doing it, but she is the most famous actress in China.
They probably have her in an re-education center. She's also being made an example off to make the other actors/actresses more honest and take less salary for social stability.
Basically by law in China, only 40% of a movie's budget can be for actors/actresses. A max of 70% of the 40% for actors/actresses can be paid to a single actor/actresses. But you have these huge stars like Fan Bingbing who wants more, so what do you do? You have two contracts, an official one with lower salary that is also reported to the government and an unofficial one that's really how much they are paid.
>Given the total lack of communication she is probably dead.
Hardly.
Quotes from OP:
Since her release last October, Fan has consciously kept a low profile. (She and her agency declined to speak with VANITY FAIR for this story.) Her first post on social media after her public apology was an overt display of fealty to the Chinese government. On November 17, when a director made a pro-Taiwan comment at the Golden Horse Awards, Fan shared a pro-China post from the Communist youth league. “China,” she said, “cannot miss out on any inch.”
Fan, for her part, appears to be quietly plotting a comeback. Throughout the crisis, her production company never shut its doors. “Of course she lost a lot of money,” said Fang, the producer. “But she’s not completely depressed.” Fang and Li, Fan’s best friend and frequent collaborator, have been discussing future projects for their favorite star. When I asked Li why she would risk casting Fan, she told me that the anguish Fan has gone through would become the well she draws from. “Nobody can be a better actress than her,” Li said.
Not long ago, Fan had drinks with her friend Li, who told me that they discussed Fan’s ordeal. If the best art reflects its times, the two concluded, who better to cast as a lead than Fan Ye herself?
Fan laughed at her luck. Perhaps there was an upside to becoming the world’s most celebrated missing person. “I worked so hard,” she told her friend, “and this is how I become famous.”
I think it's kinda weird to just make someone disappear, instead of convict them in public - make other rich Chinese nationals realize what the consequences for tax evasion are.
convicting means pinning an exact crime, with evidence, which implies that as long as you don't commit _this_ crime you're fine.
Disappearing someone means you dont know why they disappeared. You guess, and so your own fears will give you the FUD needed to avoid pissing off the authorities. It's a more efficient and effective tactic.
But then everybody knows the exact crime to avoid. This way, you don't know what happened, you know something bad happened, but you don't know what, so you avoid breaking any laws to be on the safe side.
> but you don't know what, so you avoid breaking any laws to be on the safe side.
If you don't know, then how can you know when you aren't breaking any laws?
I mean - you could be doing everything "by the book" - but then they "make a law" that makes it illegal to do something which you were doing fine the day before, but they don't tell you about that law- then they haul you in...
And seriously, nobody can really keep ahead of every law - even in western countries - it's all a sham, really; not even judges nor prosecutors are aware of all the laws. I don't even think legislators know them all. There's just way too many; at any point all of us are breaking some kind of law at some level. When nobody can honestly know the law, not even those who are supposed to interpret it, or create it, or prosecute it, it's lost its original purpose, and has become nothing more than a means of control thru fear.
I guess in this way, the "west" isn't that much different than China, we just each pretend about different things.
> how can you know when you aren't breaking any laws?
you don't. You constantly appease the party, constantly on the look out for things that could go wrong, and constantly do proactive things to make yourself useful to the party, and don't even associate with individuals who even slightly hints at critisizing the party.
The system was instituted in 2012, under President Xi Jinping, making it legal for the Chinese secret police to detain anyone charged with endangering state security or committing corruption and hold them at an undisclosed location for up to six months without access to lawyers or family members.
This is how Indian actors are paid, $100,000 on official contract and $12mm unofficially. The only difference is they grease the palms of all the politicians.
Note that Fan's sudden disappearance happened last summer. Since then, she's reemerged -- the full title of this article makes this clearer: “The Big Error Was That She Was Caught”: The Untold Story Behind the Mysterious Disappearance of Fan Bingbing, the World’s Biggest Movie Star
> Then, on October 3, Fan reappeared as suddenly as she had vanished. According to the South China Morning Post, she had been held under a form of detention known as “residential surveillance,” at a holiday resort in a suburb of Jiangsu...
> After her release, Fan issued an obsequious apology on social media. Saying she had endured “an unprecedented amount of pain,” she said she felt “ashamed and guilty” for not “setting a good example for society and the industry.”...
> That same day, tax authorities reported that Fan had declared only a third of her $4.4 million salary for Air Strike, a Chinese action film starring Bruce Willis. The movie’s release was canceled, and a warrant was issued for one of its investors...
How is it math? It totally ignores that a movie star could be well known over many countries in the world. Considering Hollywoods reach, I wouldn't be surprised.
By that metric, cricket is the most popular sport in the world, because it's the most popular sport in India, even though it's only widely played in a few countries.
It's the question of mean vs median. When talking about worldwide popularity, I think most people implicitly consider a median-like metric.
There is a rule where a stock isn't allowed to rise or fall by more than 10%. It doesn't really work because there are ways to circumvent it using financial instruments which are a proxy of the stock price but not subject to the same rules.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned blockchain here. :)
All jokes aside, isn't this an interesting application of blockchain technologies?
The title omits the fact that this article is really about taxation.
I had a knee jerk reaction to Bingbing's situation that was "she's right to hide her earnings from corrupt Chinese politicians!" At the same moment, I hold in my head the belief that Americans using resources (like roads, infrastructure, etc.) should pay their "fair" share of taxes, while simultaneously feel outraged that the lion's share of my tax dollars go to a military industrial complex which acts contrary to the way I feel my country should act as a global citizen (that's understating my real feelings...).
Wouldn't a public ledger resolve some of these problems? As the article notes, people in China were outraged (or is this a manufactured sentiment to bolster the punishment?) at the amount she earns compared to the average citizen. If there were a public accounting of her wages and public accounting of her taxes, wouldn't this transparency make EVERYONE HAPPY. </another-bad-joke>
So glad to have changed the opinion of blockchain for everyone here. You are welcome!
This has been happening for a while now [1]. The Chinese government always intervenes if someone acts in a way that is threatening to their ideology. It's interesting to follow because sometimes they will resurface with them apologizing to the media and how they were missing because they were getting medical help from the government (which makes little sense). Kind of reminds me of Lake Laogai from Avatar - The Last Air-bender.
> In fact, there was a set price for a night with her: 2 million yuan, or $300,000. It said so in a booklet that supposedly lists the going rates of all other A-list actresses.
Similar things happened to the three biggest Chinese table tennis stars and their trainers. Table tennis is more important than movies in China, they dominate this sport worldwide since the 90ies. Loosing the Olympic matches in Tokyo to foreigners or esp. Japanese players would be a national tragedy, similar to the US Basketball team loosing the Olympic finals, the Russian Ice hockey team or the Austrian downhill ski team. In China its worse, they never loose, and usually take all the first places.
So what happened was that national trainers were extremely successful, having studied Swedish and German tricks in the 80ies when they started losing to them (due to new materials also). Esp. Cai (head), LGL (men coach) and Kong (women coach). All ex-top players, and now the best trainers by far.
Cai started applying what he learned from table tennis training to other sports for Peking olympics and he became something like the president of the national soccer training effort. Being head of table tennis already gives you immense power, but then also soccer was too much for some politicians who feared their wading influence. The specific problem was one of Kong's relatives having a large gambling depth in a Macao casino, and Cai had asked LGL for some support with the soccer efforts. LGL was polite to say yes. This didn't go well with the vice mayor of Peking, a career politician who unfortunately has interest in sports to advance his career. Table tennis being the top sport. He has no idea about Table tennis of course.
So what happened was that LGL and Kong were fired effective immediately, while they world championship games were going on in Germany. The three top players voiced their support for their trainers, knowing the circumstances and knowing that the upcoming Olympics will be very tough to play against the Japanese and Germans who had again a slight advantage with new plastic balls coming up, which changed the game a lot. They were afraid to loose Tokyo 2020.
It needs at least two years to adjust to the new game style, more backhand, a new stroke called banana flick, and pips out.
So the best players and their trainers suddenly disappeared during the world championships, and were not seen much since. Officially the party line was, Kong was fired for his involvement of the debt (which he declined), LGL was promoted elsewhere with no influence and Cai, the only real danger to this guy, was also sidelined. The players were called injured, their Instagram posts immediately deleted, and the very best top player didn't play the next two years. He married, and apparently really had a knee injury. The 2nd guy was also not seen in big tournaments, only the third, the youngest played and got nr. 1.
big problem was the Japanese team beating the chinese players right and left. all the men lost to a 12 old boy (an ex-chinese who moved to Japan), the women lost to pips players, it was a desaster. like in the 80ies, when they started loosing to Koreans, Germans, Swedes and an Austrian.
The new head, the stalinist politician, called it a national reform effort, which lead to a drastic drama, they had one young guy who played similar to the Japanese, and even started winning some tournaments against them. He was pushed by the media, the "dark knight". but realistically he had no chance to win the next championships reliably. he is about world no 3, but probably not 1 or 2.
he was good at the most important Chinese internal national tournament, the world's strongest tournament, but this year he was a desaster.
So the "reform" backfired, and LGL appeared again as head of the Olympics mens team, and also the top 1 player suddenly reappeared and started winning international tournaments as if nothing happened in between. They beat the Japanese left and right. True story.
36 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 76.3 ms ] threadHardly mysterious: she was "disappeared" by the authorities. Given the total lack of communication she is probably dead. We are no more likely to find out what happened than to find what really happened at Tiananmen. Perhaps in half a lifetime's time one of the survivors of the next revolution will tell us.
They probably have her in an re-education center. She's also being made an example off to make the other actors/actresses more honest and take less salary for social stability.
Basically by law in China, only 40% of a movie's budget can be for actors/actresses. A max of 70% of the 40% for actors/actresses can be paid to a single actor/actresses. But you have these huge stars like Fan Bingbing who wants more, so what do you do? You have two contracts, an official one with lower salary that is also reported to the government and an unofficial one that's really how much they are paid.
Hardly.
Quotes from OP:
Since her release last October, Fan has consciously kept a low profile. (She and her agency declined to speak with VANITY FAIR for this story.) Her first post on social media after her public apology was an overt display of fealty to the Chinese government. On November 17, when a director made a pro-Taiwan comment at the Golden Horse Awards, Fan shared a pro-China post from the Communist youth league. “China,” she said, “cannot miss out on any inch.”
Fan, for her part, appears to be quietly plotting a comeback. Throughout the crisis, her production company never shut its doors. “Of course she lost a lot of money,” said Fang, the producer. “But she’s not completely depressed.” Fang and Li, Fan’s best friend and frequent collaborator, have been discussing future projects for their favorite star. When I asked Li why she would risk casting Fan, she told me that the anguish Fan has gone through would become the well she draws from. “Nobody can be a better actress than her,” Li said.
Not long ago, Fan had drinks with her friend Li, who told me that they discussed Fan’s ordeal. If the best art reflects its times, the two concluded, who better to cast as a lead than Fan Ye herself?
Fan laughed at her luck. Perhaps there was an upside to becoming the world’s most celebrated missing person. “I worked so hard,” she told her friend, “and this is how I become famous.”
Disappearing someone means you dont know why they disappeared. You guess, and so your own fears will give you the FUD needed to avoid pissing off the authorities. It's a more efficient and effective tactic.
now everyone else eager to pay back
The prosecution rate is over 99% in China. That's hardly a challenge.
If you don't know, then how can you know when you aren't breaking any laws?
I mean - you could be doing everything "by the book" - but then they "make a law" that makes it illegal to do something which you were doing fine the day before, but they don't tell you about that law- then they haul you in...
And seriously, nobody can really keep ahead of every law - even in western countries - it's all a sham, really; not even judges nor prosecutors are aware of all the laws. I don't even think legislators know them all. There's just way too many; at any point all of us are breaking some kind of law at some level. When nobody can honestly know the law, not even those who are supposed to interpret it, or create it, or prosecute it, it's lost its original purpose, and has become nothing more than a means of control thru fear.
I guess in this way, the "west" isn't that much different than China, we just each pretend about different things.
you don't. You constantly appease the party, constantly on the look out for things that could go wrong, and constantly do proactive things to make yourself useful to the party, and don't even associate with individuals who even slightly hints at critisizing the party.
The system was instituted in 2012, under President Xi Jinping, making it legal for the Chinese secret police to detain anyone charged with endangering state security or committing corruption and hold them at an undisclosed location for up to six months without access to lawyers or family members.
> Then, on October 3, Fan reappeared as suddenly as she had vanished. According to the South China Morning Post, she had been held under a form of detention known as “residential surveillance,” at a holiday resort in a suburb of Jiangsu...
> After her release, Fan issued an obsequious apology on social media. Saying she had endured “an unprecedented amount of pain,” she said she felt “ashamed and guilty” for not “setting a good example for society and the industry.”...
> That same day, tax authorities reported that Fan had declared only a third of her $4.4 million salary for Air Strike, a Chinese action film starring Bruce Willis. The movie’s release was canceled, and a warrant was issued for one of its investors...
That's a non sequitur, isn't it?
That's like saying the most popular social media site in China also has to be the most popular social media site in the world.
It's the question of mean vs median. When talking about worldwide popularity, I think most people implicitly consider a median-like metric.
?! How does that even work?
That’s a massive difference.
And re the Limit Up-Limit Down rule, that’s a trading halt for five minutes, not the entire day.
Again, not as much of a, but still a massive difference.
All jokes aside, isn't this an interesting application of blockchain technologies?
The title omits the fact that this article is really about taxation.
I had a knee jerk reaction to Bingbing's situation that was "she's right to hide her earnings from corrupt Chinese politicians!" At the same moment, I hold in my head the belief that Americans using resources (like roads, infrastructure, etc.) should pay their "fair" share of taxes, while simultaneously feel outraged that the lion's share of my tax dollars go to a military industrial complex which acts contrary to the way I feel my country should act as a global citizen (that's understating my real feelings...).
Wouldn't a public ledger resolve some of these problems? As the article notes, people in China were outraged (or is this a manufactured sentiment to bolster the punishment?) at the amount she earns compared to the average citizen. If there were a public accounting of her wages and public accounting of her taxes, wouldn't this transparency make EVERYONE HAPPY. </another-bad-joke>
So glad to have changed the opinion of blockchain for everyone here. You are welcome!
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-24/missing-b...
Anyone have a link of that booklet?
So what happened was that national trainers were extremely successful, having studied Swedish and German tricks in the 80ies when they started losing to them (due to new materials also). Esp. Cai (head), LGL (men coach) and Kong (women coach). All ex-top players, and now the best trainers by far. Cai started applying what he learned from table tennis training to other sports for Peking olympics and he became something like the president of the national soccer training effort. Being head of table tennis already gives you immense power, but then also soccer was too much for some politicians who feared their wading influence. The specific problem was one of Kong's relatives having a large gambling depth in a Macao casino, and Cai had asked LGL for some support with the soccer efforts. LGL was polite to say yes. This didn't go well with the vice mayor of Peking, a career politician who unfortunately has interest in sports to advance his career. Table tennis being the top sport. He has no idea about Table tennis of course.
So what happened was that LGL and Kong were fired effective immediately, while they world championship games were going on in Germany. The three top players voiced their support for their trainers, knowing the circumstances and knowing that the upcoming Olympics will be very tough to play against the Japanese and Germans who had again a slight advantage with new plastic balls coming up, which changed the game a lot. They were afraid to loose Tokyo 2020. It needs at least two years to adjust to the new game style, more backhand, a new stroke called banana flick, and pips out.
So the best players and their trainers suddenly disappeared during the world championships, and were not seen much since. Officially the party line was, Kong was fired for his involvement of the debt (which he declined), LGL was promoted elsewhere with no influence and Cai, the only real danger to this guy, was also sidelined. The players were called injured, their Instagram posts immediately deleted, and the very best top player didn't play the next two years. He married, and apparently really had a knee injury. The 2nd guy was also not seen in big tournaments, only the third, the youngest played and got nr. 1. big problem was the Japanese team beating the chinese players right and left. all the men lost to a 12 old boy (an ex-chinese who moved to Japan), the women lost to pips players, it was a desaster. like in the 80ies, when they started loosing to Koreans, Germans, Swedes and an Austrian. The new head, the stalinist politician, called it a national reform effort, which lead to a drastic drama, they had one young guy who played similar to the Japanese, and even started winning some tournaments against them. He was pushed by the media, the "dark knight". but realistically he had no chance to win the next championships reliably. he is about world no 3, but probably not 1 or 2. he was good at the most important Chinese internal national tournament, the world's strongest tournament, but this year he was a desaster. So the "reform" backfired, and LGL appeared again as head of the Olympics mens team, and also the top 1 player suddenly reappeared and started winning international tournaments as if nothing happened in between. They beat the Japanese left and right. True story.