Jackie Chan: 10 quotes on his birthday

Jackie Chan (Kong-Sang) was born in Hong Kong in 1954 to Charles and Lee-lee Chan. His father taught him kung fu at an early age and he continued his martial arts training at the China Drama Academy, where he lived from age 7 to 17. Chan made his acting debut at age 8 in the movie “Seven Little Valiant Fighters." He has since appeared in over 150 films, in addition to cartoons and video games. He has also released a number of albums and has sung many of the theme songs for his films. Chan now spends a lot of his time devoted to charity work and is an Ambassador for UNICEF/UNAIDS.

1. Superman

Hong Kong Kung Fu Director and Actor Jackie Chan poses for photographers on the red carpet at the 49th Golden Horse Film Awards in Ilan county, northeastern Taiwan, November 24, 2012. REUTERS/Yi-ting Chung

“A lot of people ask me when I do a stunt, 'Jackie, are you scared?' Of course I'm scared. I'm not Superman.”

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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