01/01/2003 - Wednesday

Richie is having the same hearing problem as Siu Fang Fang. As a singer, both voice and hearing are equally important. Due to his hearing problem, Richie has to stop all his jobs and concentrate on rest. The worse result of this illness might leads him to deaf. He attended an award ceremony (Xin Cheng Jing Bao Award Ceremony) yesterday and won the "Mandarin Male Singer" award. He was wearing earplug during the whole ceremony. He received the award and did not do any performance.

For the first time Richie mentioned about his ear damage, where at times, he realised that he hardly hear people's conversation with him. For few years, he did not go for any body checkup therefore, he don't know that he is suffering from this problem. As this problem is not nature born, doctor diagnosed that Richie spend most of the time under loud and noisy environments. When times come, this will eventually damage the ear. Meanwhile, Richie dislikes wearing earplug during motorbike racing and explosion filming which results both ears are badly damage. Richie experienced problem in hearing medium and high notes. According to doctor, there is no cure to this and needs to spend a long duration on medication and rest to avoid the problem getting worse. At the moment, Richie had taken 3 weeks medication and the situation has improved.

For 5 continuous years, Richie had won the "Mandarin Male Singer" and he is very happy as a lot of people expected that Taiwanese singer's setting their career in Hong Kong normally will not last after 3 years and this is the fifth year he received the award. THis might probably due to his singing and filming and he hopes to continue his career at Hong Kong.

As Richie's best friend, Karen Mok said that she only knew that Richie is sick through newspaper and probably due to lack of rest. No wonder, she saw him wearing earplug. Karen also mentioned that when she was filming "So Close", there was an explosion scene where she had forgotten to wear earplug and her ears had ringing sound after that.

(Source : Nanyang Siang Pau)

07/01/2003 - Tuesday
Yesterday Richie came from Taiwan to Hongkong to appear as guest of good friend Wang Ping Liang's concert. When asked about his ear condition, he replied that ever since his ear problem, he's been receiving a lot of concern from friends and acquaintances, among them Josephine Siao. She advised him to be careful of the other ear and not to let it get damaged as well. This makes him feel very moved. And recently a lot of friends presented him ear plugs as gifts to show their concern. A pilot friend gave him ear plugs specially worn by pilots, but Richie says that unless it's really necessary he won't use them because he's afraid of being misunderstood for being impolite when people speak to him and he can't hear them properly with the plugs on.

(Source : Sin Chew Jit Poh)

09/01/2003 - Thursday
On 7th January Richie was guest at Wang Ping Liang's concert. Because of his ear condition, Richie tries his best to avoid noisy places. But for this concert, he came prepared. He had specially ordered an hearing aid from the U.S. which cost him more than $10,000 Taiwanese currency. This device can automatically filter out unwanted noise and adjust the level to suit the wearer so that hearing is much improved. At the concert Jackie Chan unexpectedly turned up and he dueted with Ping Liang. Seems Jackie also has a right-ear problem when he damaged his ear-drum while shooting a film some years ago. Now Richie has a left-ear problem, so the two seems to be a perfect pair. While conversing, they'll adjust their position. Jackie expressed his concern and hope that Richie will recover soon. At the celebration after the concert, Richie was teased about the possibility of having to learn sign language - just in case. Everyone were surprised when Richie immediately made a few sign language signals. Seems he had a deaf friend during his university days and that's where he learned a bit of the sign language. But Richie is very positive that he'll take great care of his condition and there won't be the need for communicating with sign language in future. When enquired about Tina having a high-tone voice, whether she's changing anything to adjust to his condition, Richie begged the reporters not to mention this as he fears Tina would get upset. Looks like Richie is very attentive and appreciative of Tina and understands that Tina is stressed by this as well.

(Source : http://www.wenweipo.com/news.phtml?news_id=EN0301090016&cat=011EN )