Cecilia Cheung Announces She’s Changing Her Name To “Unlock” Her “New Identity”
However, it looks like it was just part of her new gig as an e-commerce ambassador.
Changing one’s name in the middle of one’s showbiz career is actually quite common, with most celebs doing it for fengshui reasons or even ‘cos their old name was “too complicated”. However, such a decision may not always be well-received by the public.
Last Tuesday (Apr 20), Hongkong actress Cecilia Cheung suddenly announced that she will be going by a new Chinese name, and that she's gone from “张柏芝” (Zhang Bo Zhi) to “张百知” (Zhang Bai Zhi). The 40-year-old even changed her Weibo name to “I am Zhang Bai Zhi” to further drive the point home.
FYI, her new moniker can be loosely translated as Know-it-all.
Ceci’s Weibo post announcing the change
Needless to say, this utterly unexpected update shocked netizens, most of whom don’t seem very pleased by her choice and left comments imploring her not to do it.
“What if you can’t change it back?” said one concerned fan, who was probably reminded of that Taiwanese guy who was stuck with the name “Salmon Dream” after changing it for the sake of free sushi (although you could argue that “Bai Zhi” is a lot better than that fish-inspired moniker).
Even Chinese actress Viann Zhang (also known as Zhang Xinyu) was taken aback, writing, “Why did you suddenly change your name?”
Why indeed?
As it turns out, it may all have just been part of an elaborate social media publicity stunt (and, given how much attention it got, good or bad, it clearly worked).
A few hours after alerting everyone to her new name, Ceci posted a clip that appears to be an ad for Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, along with the caption, “Everyone is asking me why I changed my name. It’s ‘cos I want to unlock my new identity. See you tomorrow.”
This “new identity” is apparently her role as Tmall’s new ambassador. On Wednesday (Apr 21), the star shared another video of herself introducing new products and recommending some of her personal favourites that are available on the shopping website.
We’re sure people would’ve watched it without her making such a surprising announcement, though
According to Taiwanese media, Ceci’s endorsement rate reportedly doubled from 3mil yuan (S$614,000) to 6mil yuan (S$1.2mil) thanks to her participation in the second season of Chinese variety show Sisters Who Make Waves, even though she failed to make it into the final group in the end.
While it’s not clear how much the mother-of-three was paid to endorse Tmall, it was clearly enough to make her agree to a name change (although we don’t think it’s actually official).
Hey, if people can do it for free-flow sashimi, wouldn’t you do it for a million bucks?
Ka-ching
Photos: Cecilia Cheung/Weibo
