{"id":239072,"date":"2025-02-14T17:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/14\/barbie-hsu-taiwanese-actress-and-star-of-meteor-garden-dies-at-48\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T17:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:50:10","slug":"barbie-hsu-taiwanese-actress-and-star-of-meteor-garden-dies-at-48","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/14\/barbie-hsu-taiwanese-actress-and-star-of-meteor-garden-dies-at-48\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbie Hsu, Taiwanese Actress and Star of \u2018Meteor Garden,\u2019 Dies at 48"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/15\/multimedia\/11HSU--01-qgth-print1-SUB\/11HSU--01-qgth-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Barbie Hsu, Taiwanese Actress and Star of \u2018Meteor Garden,\u2019 Dies at 48\" title=\"Barbie Hsu, Taiwanese Actress and Star of \u2018Meteor Garden,\u2019 Dies at 48\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Barbie Hsu, a Taiwanese actress, television host and pop star who catapulted to Pan-Asian popularity in 2001 as the star of the Cinderella-style teenage drama \u201cMeteor Garden,\u201d died on Feb. 2 in Tokyo. She was 48.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her death was announced to TVBS News in Taiwan by her sister Dee Hsu, who said the cause was complications of the flu. The family had been vacationing in Japan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In \u201cMeteor Garden,\u201d an adaptation of the Japanese manga \u201cBoys Over Flowers,\u201d Ms. Hsu played Dong Shan Cai, a na\u00efve yet headstrong student from a poor family who is terrorized by a group of four handsome boys who call themselves F4 after she enrolls in the elite private school they attend. She reluctantly enters high society when F4\u2019s leader, Dao Ming Si (played by Jerry Yan), falls for her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With her expressive eyes and elfin features, Ms. Hsu was a natural for the role, and she exploded in popularity across swaths of Asia, where she was known by the nickname Big S.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Fans were particularly drawn to her character\u2019s relatable and resilient nature. \u201cI am like a blade of grass,\u201d she said in one episode. \u201cNo matter how many times you cut me down, I will grow back and live again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The four male stars used the series\u2019 influence to promote their boy band, also called F4 \u2014 for \u201cFlower Four\u201d \u2014 making \u201cMeteor Garden\u201d an early example of the genre known as idol drama, formulaic but addictive love stories featuring pop stars. Ms. Hsu\u2019s character became the genre\u2019s classic protagonist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As Mei Ting Li, a professor of media studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who specializes in fandom and popular culture, wrote in an email, the show \u201cbecame the archetype of Chinese-language TV drama that allowed the cross-media celebrity business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The series\u2019 popularity led to later shows adapted from the same source material, including a 2018 Chinese drama of the same name and the hugely successful \u201cBoys Over Flowers\u201d (2009).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Its popularity spread as far as the Philippines, where it became one of the country\u2019s highest-rated shows, inspiring a quasi-religious fervor among young people that became known as \u201cMeteor fever.\u201d Filipino men adopted the floppy hair and dress of their favorite characters, and the stars were mobbed when they visited the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During one visit, in 2003, the media conglomerate ABS-CBN, which aired \u201cMeteor Garden,\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rappler.com\/entertainment\/barbie-hsu-meteor-garden-rise-asian-novelas\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">used decoy actors<\/a> in wigs to distract the paparazzi, and some 100 policemen were deployed to manage unruly crowds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hsi-yuan Hsu was born on Oct. 6, 1976, in Taipei, Taiwan, to Huang Chun-Mei and Hsu Chien. The household was tumultuous: Her mother separated from her father over his gambling. Barbie\u2019s mother supported her and her two sisters by working as a real estate broker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1994, Ms. Hsu and her younger sister, Dee, enrolled in the Hwa Kang Arts School in Taipei, where they befriended a group of classmates nicknamed the Seven Fairies, including the actresses and singers Mavis Fan, Pace Wu and Aya Liu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While at Hwa Kang, the Hsu sisters began performing as a pop duo known as S.O.S., or Sisters of Shu; their 1995 bubblegum pop song \u201cTen Minutes of Love\u201d became a breakout hit. They later changed their name to A.S.O.S., for All Sisters of Shu, and co-hosted variety shows like \u201cGuess,\u201d from 1996 to 2000, and \u201c100% Entertainment,\u201d from 1998 to 2005.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Hsu leveraged her \u201cMeteor Garden\u201d fame to promote two best-selling beauty guides, published in 2004 and 2007, that encouraged readers to try red wine facials to prevent aging and Rogaine to thicken their eyebrows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2008, she branched out into Chinese-language cinema by playing a woman kidnapped by a gang of Interpol agents in \u201cConnected,\u201d a remake of the 2004 Hollywood thriller \u201cCellular.\u201d In 2010, she played a sadistic young woman who murdered her fianc\u00e9 and his parents on her wedding night in the martial arts film \u201cReign of Assassins,\u201d starring Michelle Yeoh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Hsu withdrew from acting in 2011, but her tumultuous relationship with the Chinese businessman Wang Xiaofei, whom she married in 2010, kept her in the spotlight; they divorced in 2021. Her survivors include a son, Hsi-Lin, and a daughter, Hsi-Yueh, as well as her second husband, Koo Jun-yup, a South Korean singer known as DJ Koo, whom she married in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Hsu experienced a host of health issues, including heart disease and epilepsy, as well as a near-fatal seizure during the birth of her son. Her death sent ripples of grief across Asia and trended on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform. The South China Morning Post <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/people-culture\/china-personalities\/article\/3297424\/china-netizens-use-deepseek-copy-barbara-hsus-style-farewell-letters-mourn-passing?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> that many of her bereaved fans turned to the Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek to construct farewell letters mimicking her writing style.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many of these letters noted her signature phrase: \u201cLive beautifully.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/14\/world\/asia\/barbie-hsu-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barbie Hsu, a Taiwanese actress, television host and pop star who catapulted to Pan-Asian popularity in 2001 as the star of the Cinderella-style teenage drama \u201cMeteor Garden,\u201d died on Feb. 2 in Tokyo. She was 48. Her death was announced to TVBS News in Taiwan by her sister Dee Hsu, who said the cause was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/15\/multimedia\/11HSU--01-qgth-print1-SUB\/11HSU--01-qgth-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[170908,4100,21190,186128,163460,16,3733,180552,36386,186129,175978,964,2251,63213,23481],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239074,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239072\/revisions\/239074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}