Pan Lingling Reveals Huang Shinan Was Initially Not Her Ideal Type: "I Wanted To Marry A Caucasian"

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Sometimes, the right person may already be around us, just that we've friendzoned them before even giving them a chance.

That was exactly what happened when Pan Lingling first met her husband, Huang Shinan, way back in 1987. 

Speaking to 8days.sg about her love story with the 65-year-old actor, Lingling, 56, confessed that Shinan was actually “not the ideal partner in [her] heart”.

They've been married for 29 years and have two sons — Beckham, 27, and Kynaston, 24 — but their love story had an interesting start. 

“Since young, I didn’t want to marry a Chinese [person]. I wanted to marry a Caucasian,” laughed Lingling. 

“Because I’m tall, I wanted to marry someone taller than me. Back then, I thought Caucasians were taller.” says the 1.7m-tall actress.

She recalled first meeting Shinan, who is 1.82m tall, when she was just 17 and still studying at drama school.

“We were at the TV station. I thought he was a classmate and went up to him, but he ended up giving me a shock,” she said.

“I felt very bad and kept apologising to him ever since. I also often saw him play basketball behind the TV station. Back then, [Shinan] was a very famous actor.”

Lingling, however, had been watching Shinan’s dramas since she was young and didn’t particularly like him because of the many villainous roles he played.

“But after I kept apologising to him, I realised he was quite a nice person,” she mused.

Their story took another turn when Lingling exchanged money with Shinan one day and, surprisingly, gave him her phone number.

“That night, he really called. When I received his call, my heart did skip a beat. But I didn’t know why he called,” said Lingling.

Regardless, Shinan insists to this day that Lingling was the one who made the first move.

“He said it’s because I gave him my number, but I responded: ‘If I didn’t look like this, would you have called me?’” chuckled Lingling, stressing that she wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time as she was still young.

So how did she eventually decide he was The One?

Apart from the fact that he quit smoking for her, Lingling said she suddenly realised one day that Shinan was the “complete” version of the man she was looking for.

“When I was young, I [always thought] my future partner would be tall, but I just didn’t know what the head would look like because I didn’t know who the person would be,” she explained, adding that they both complement each other well in many areas. That, and the fact she had always wanted her partner to be at least five years older than her. 

“One day, I suddenly realised: ‘Hey, if I put his head [on the body I always dreamed of], that’s the complete person.’” Lingling quipped.