Now that Legend of Fei actor Wang Yibo has finished filming his drama, he can now resume his hosting duties on the variety show Day Day Up. Amongst his first orders of business is to honour a special promise made to one of his fans – a nurse called Lisa who worked on the frontlines at the hard-hit epicenter of the virus Wuhan, to have her visit him and his colleagues on the set. According to the actor, since he was quite busy the first time his colleagues invited healthcare staff to a thank you dinner, he wanted to replicate the action and invite a special person (Lisa) to come pay him a visit at the Hunan broadcasting offices. Lisa was amongst the medical staff in a Wuhan hospital who said on a video message “Yibo, wait for me, I’ll come visit you” on social media. The star responded to that video and said “waiting for you to come back, please come visit us at Day Day Up. All frontline medical staff must keep safe.”
The pair’s meeting was quite low key and a bit funny actually because Lisa initially didn’t recognize the actor in his “disguise”. To be fair who’d recognize him with his cap’s brim pulled soo low, and a face mask pulled all the way up to his eyeballs!? And he had bangs! All that’s left to give anyone a clue is the tiny sliver of his features between his bangs and the mask. Thankfully, after some tos and fros of him serving her stuff, the light finally went off in her head when she recognised his voice!
After eating the bowl of noodles Wang Yibo freshly prepared for her, Lisa reveals that she was amongst the first nurses deployed to the frontlines and had only just returned home after working eighty days at the frontlines.
In a scrapbook she presented to the actor which she said she’d been working on after her hospital shifts, she detailed some of the things medical workers had to face while tending to their patients – “This is a picture I drew of me feeding a patient. We wore stifling protective equipment to do things like giving patients a drink of water and their medicine, brewing milk and changing their diapers. Although we are very tired, we still want to do our best to take care of each person.” In another one of her stories, Lisa shared that she usually writes the actor’s name together with hers on her PPE suit but forgot to write her own name one time. So people were calling her “Yibo, Yibo!” all day and she was totally okay with it. After hearing her stories and looking through her scrapbook, Wang Yibo said that he didn’t expect to become a such source of strength for others and was thankful.
We’ve all taken to the nightly ritual of cheering and clapping for our selfless health care and essential workers hard at work in the frontlines to show just how much we appreciate their sacrifice, but it’s equally heartwarming to see that some stars have reached out to take on a more meaningful approach to give comfort in any way they can, especially to the frontliners who have endured so much physically, mentally and psychologically during this crisis. Kudos to Wang Yibo and I really hope his small action will serve as an inspiration for more celebs to follow suit.
Source: 1
Anonymous
Very moving after watching it. He was so handsome on the part taking off the mask and smiling afterwards, I thought I was watching an idol drama.
Anonymous
@Anonymous 1
I tried to look for that video, but i can't find it. Can you please share the link? Thanks!
Claire Xiao
I stan a king.
Anonymous
He is actually quite sweet, very unlike his "cold" image. It's no surprise that his nickname is Wang Tiantian.
Aegis
This kid can go beyond a triple threat entertainer. If his competitors is unable to kill him early on in his career, they will be very sorry in the future. He has too many unique identities that it will make it very difficult for others to imitate. This type of uniqueness will become very apparent as time goes by and I'm predicting that he will become a favorite pick for brands who wants to transform their image.
Chase Shê
@Anon 1a : Please click on the word "meeting" in red on the second paragraph. It should take you straight on to the video 🙂
Anonymous
@ Chase She
Thank you very much for the tip. How did I miss that? 🙂 That was very sweet of him.
Chase Shê
@Anon 1.c: You're very welcome 😀
Anonymous
Thanks so much for the article and the above commenter who mentioned the link to the Weibo video.
Wang Yibo is absolutely talented, suai/good looking and deep down a kind person. Not sure why he is not in top 3 most popular idol (his Untamed co-star Sean Xiao was the top until the PR nightmare happened) however he is consistently in top 10. Hope he can achieve better in future.
Anonymous
A lot of these popularity charts rely on fans to vote and create topics. Because he is a low-key person and a majority of his fans are older, they tend to be more financially stable but less active online. His fan have very high purchasing power, he occupied about half of the top 10 list for magazine sales. His endorsements with the different brands were all very well received and of the spokesman titles.
The Chinese entertainment industry is cruel and full of fierce competitions (like what happened with Sean Xiao). What I find very interesting is that Wang Yibo actually landed himself in a very 'peculiar' position. This is the 'goldilocks' position, one that is is very advantageous and can serve as a base to undertake later. The reason why I considered this as a goldilocks placement is because it's not high enough for others to be concern about, but it is always within radar. By the time others realize that something is wrong, he would have already weave a fish trap. From observation, this position is ideal of long term development, and if carefully planned, will become an upward trend to the top.
Anonymous
@ Anonymous 5.a
I agree with everything you said here. 🙂 Wang Yibo is in a position that not too high to be destroyed by bad people and not too low to be forgotten by fans.
Anonymous
@Anonymous 5.a: Well said! I really do hope WYB can go further and be more respected.
People like AngelaBB, Sean Xiao , Yang Mi, Fan BB, Yang Zi, etc are highly targeted by paparazzi because they are mostly on top of the popular, rich or influential artistes list.
His upcoming drama, Legend of Fei will see him co-starring with Zanilla Zhao, her first costume drama after giving birth. ZZ usually helps to tier up most of her former Male Leads to another level of stardom and respect in dramaland.
@Anonymous 5.b : Yes!
From Anonymous# 5
Anonymous
I am glad that Yibo was able to see the positive side of his celebrity especially after that news about the stalker fans!
@Anonymous 5.a: Your comment was very insightful.