[BRIEF NOTE] On Gigi Chao's open letter to her father about her wife

[rfmcdonald]

Gigi Chao has addressed her father's highly public offering of a huge dowry to any man who would take her from her wife with an open letter.

The daughter of a flamboyant Hong Kong tycoon whose offer of a massive dowry inspired a movie wrote an open letter on Wednesday asking him to accept who she is after he reportedly raised the price.

Cecil Chao made world headlines in 2012 when he tried to find a man who could successfully woo his daughter, Gigi Chao, away from her partner by offering 500 million Hong Kong dollars (more than $71.7 million Cdn), an offer that a Malaysian newspaper who interviewed him last week said he has doubled.

In a letter to her father published Wednesday by two Hong Kong newspapers, Gigi Chao said she knows it's "difficult for you to understand, let alone accept" how she could be romantically attracted to a woman.

[. . .]

Cecil Chao, who made his fortune as a Hong Kong property developer, has a reputation for being a playboy with a love for Rolls-Royces. He once claimed to have had 10,000 girlfriends but has never married. Gigi Chao is one of his three children by three different women.

Shanghaiist has the text of the open letter, as does the South China Morning Post.

My regret is that you have no idea how happy I am with my life, and there are aspects of my life that you don’t share. I suppose we don’t need each other’s approval for our romantic relationships, and I am sure your relationships are really fantastic too.

However, I do love my partner Sean, who does a good job of looking after me, ensuring I am fed, bathed and warm enough every day, and generally cheering me up to be a happy, jolly girl. She is a large part of my life, and I am a better person because of her.

Now, I’m not asking you to be best of friends; however, it would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of her, and treat her like a normal, dignified human being.

I understand it is difficult for you to understand, let alone accept this truth.

I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out who I am, what is important in my life, who I love and how best to live life, as an expression of all these questions. I am proud of my life, and I would not choose to live it any other way (except also figuring out how to be gentler on the planet).