It's been a good news week generally in celebrity land, with Hong Kong actor Benny Chan celebrating the birth of his daughter.

Perhaps it will be a new start for the under-fire Hong Kong actor, who faces a court case over his attitude to women, following allegations that he appeared to sexually molest fellow thesp Rose Chan while shooting the new film from director Wong Jing.

Tellingly, Wong was not supportive of his male star when he said the actor's fans were "irrational" in their support, when photographic evidence of Benny's impropriety was in plentiful supply.

Perhaps Benny should take a leaf out of comedian Guo Degang's book. It wasn't so long ago that the cross-talk master was facing career suicide after one of his apprentices beat up a TV journalist and Guo was also accused of attempting to seduce female audience members.

Now he's being called the compassionate "Doctor Guo", after he went all out to help a fan who had troubles of her own. The woman posted a message to Guo on his micro blog, saying her son was a big fan but was suffering from depression.

"Don't worry. There has to be a solution. I am a parent too, and I can understand your feelings," Guo said, reaching out. He offered to call her and discuss the situation further, asking whether the boy's problems were related to his education.

Netizens were full of praise for Guo and in just two hours, his message of support was retweeted about 2,500 times and received more than 4,000 replies.

Someone who rarely puts a foot wrong is Taiwan model and actress Lin Chi-ling, who seems to be putting all her energy into work, rather than sorting out her love life.

It's not as though she's been left on the shelf (as she must get hundreds of offers of marriage a day), but as she celebrated her 37th birthday on the set of a film in Hangzhou on Tuesday, her brother claimed she would not get married until she was at least 40.

This gives any male interested a window of three years to make an impression.

Finally, the uplifting story of Charmian Chen, a 22-year-old Taiwan student, who became an international Internet star after being accosted by monkeys in the forests of Bali, Indonesia.

It all happened, we are told, when a piece of corn dropped down her blouse, a monkey tried to find it, and a photographer captured the moment.

After the pictures became hotly forwarded, from blog to blog, the tabloids in Britain eventually splashed the story and the rest, as they say, is history. Chen is now immortalized as "Monkey Girl" and has a promising modeling career ahead of her, in addition to being a student at the College of Commerce, National Chengchi University.

China Daily

(China Daily 12/03/2011 page11)