The Chinese actress brings her flair for attracting compatriot tourists to the southern Malaysian state, next

Fan Bingbing at the Emi Gala in Dubai last month. Photo: Fan Bingbing/Facebook

After appearing as an exquisitely detailed nang songkran (roughly, lady Songkran) in Bangkok last April, Fan Bingbing (范冰冰) is ready to take on another ambassadorial role for tourism in Southeast Asia. Her next port of call: Malacca (or Melaka in Malay). According to the Chinese media in Malaysia, the actress will be in the southern state, home of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Malacca City, next month (14th—16th). 东方日报 (Oriental Daily News) reported that Ms Fan’s representative Jersey Chong (张馨灵, Zhang Xinling), a Malaysian, has met with the state’s chief minister Ab Rauf Yusoh to discuss the star’s appearance. “I believe her arrival will attract more tourists from China and Asia to visit Malacca,” he was reported to have said. No details of what she would be doing in Malacca were revealed.

There isn’t an equivalent of the rowdy Songkran in calm Malacca. In June, there is no major festival except a smallish “feast of the fishermen” festa Saint Pedro (festival), but that is at the end of the month. Will a perarakan (parade) down popular Jonkers Street be organised for Ms Fan so that she could sit regally in a bedecked trishaw (gaily festooned with stuffed Doraemon?) and wave to her appreciative fans and flaunt her couture, such as the hooded Stéphane Rolland gown she wore to the Emi Gala in Dubai last month (she was there to receive the Global Fashion Icon award)? Or would she don something more tradisional? Would it be more Malay or Peranakan? Perhaps, as in Bangkok, a more historical or folkloric character, but who could she play?

Would it be more Malay or Peranakan? Perhaps, as in Bangkok, a more historical or folkloric character?

Puteri Gunung Ledang immediately comes to mind. The fairy princess—as she is described—lived in an enchanted palace atop the Ledang mountain in Johor. She was supposed to be very beautiful and was known throughout the land to possess beauty and “magical powers”. Perhaps, more famous was her daring rejection of the Malaccan sultan Mansur Shah (also Mamsursa) as suitor. When he sent the famous pahlawan (warrior) Hang Tuah (considered the most illustrious figure in Malay literature and was played by P Ramlee in the 1956 eponymous film) and his men to seek her hand, she sent them home with seven impossible—even cheeky—tasks for the sultan to perform, including presenting her with seven trays of mosquito hearts! He gave up and she never descended the gunung to live in the Mansur Shah’s istana.

Or, might Ms Fan, who has played the formidable Wu Zetian (武则天) prefer to be Tun Fatimah? Considered a srikandi (heroine), Tun Fatima was also a vengeful queen. The daughter of the bendahara (treasurer) of Malacca, she was set up by her father’s enemies when they slandered him, accusing the man of treason as he had allowed his daughter to marry a commoner (and not the sultan, as was the fate of the bendahara’s daughter then). The sultan had the menfolk of her family slayed, including her husband. When she finally wedded the sultan, she used her power in his court to exact revenge on the men who did her family in, but, interestingly, not the ruler. Legend had it that she was even sort of a Joan of Arc, leading the fight against the Portuguese invasion of Malacca. Which will Fan Bingbing be? 望眼欲穿 (wang yan yu chuan)—we await, anxiously.