(Guangzhou) Forty-three-year-old actress Fala Chen was born in China and immigrated to the United States at age 14. In 2005, she represented New York in the Miss Chinese International Pageant and won second place. In recent years, she has shifted her career focus to Hollywood with notable success. While returning to China to promote her new film, she unexpectedly shared details about her family background, sparking discussions online.
As she toured various cinemas to promote the Hong Kong film The Remnant Dream, Chen took part in a media interview in Guangzhou. In a clip circulating on Douyin, she mentioned, “Actually, my family has Guangzhou roots — we even had properties here.”
She explained that her grandmother was originally from Panyu, a native Cantonese, and that the family once owned several properties in the city center. However, due to the passage of time and complicated inheritance matters, the exact details are now unclear.
She added, “Other properties were divided among relatives. From what I heard, several units along a certain street were allocated to them, but we were never informed.”
Chen also noted that her grandmother’s side of the family, including her grandmother’s brother, had lost contact over the years, making it nearly impossible to reconnect.
After the video surfaced, many netizens questioned the credibility and relevance of the story. Comments included: “Why bring up inheritance from relatives you haven't contacted in decades?” — “If it belonged to her granduncle’s family, what does that have to do with her?” — “Properties from the grandmother’s lineage wouldn’t be passed down to married-out descendants.”
Others argued that simply having a grandmother from Guangzhou does not determine her own roots: “Where her father and grandfather are from is what matters.”
The topic quickly became a point of online debate.
