There is a moment in the first episode of Chuang Asia: Season 2 where, midway through the group performance, Jackson Wong calmly poised himself before delivering a perfect Corkscrew in the air. This is perhaps what caught Thai singer Jeff Satur’s attention when he asked whom among the group were martial artists (also right before fellow judge and Taiwanese actor Ariel Lin wondered aloud if Jackson would please show off his six-pack to us!). Wushu, or kung fu as most of us know it, has been a part of Jackson for thirteen years, more than half of the 22-year-old’s life. It’s a unique combat sport in the sense that it combines fighting with the delicate art of dance. It is also a skill that Jackson leaned on during his time on Chuang Asia.
Chuang was brand-new territory for Jackson. In hindsight, the reality show actually shares similarities with his life of wushu: the intense training involved; performing in the public eye; meeting peers chasing after the same goal. “But this is a big change for me,” Jackson says to me. “At first, I didn’t prepare anything, because I didn’t know that I was going to go to Chuang. So, I had fast training sessions in dancing, and also singing, vocals. And four months at Chuang… I think I changed a lot. I started to love dancing. I also like to be on stage too, I just realised that.”
The athlete to entertainer pipeline is not so unheard of these days. Jackson’s famous namesake, Jackson Wang, was a professional fencer set to compete in the 2012 Olympics before he turned away from the world of sports to pursue his passion in music, eventually becoming a member of the boy band GOT7 before achieving massive solo success. (Jackson counts Wang among his major influences.) “He left his athlete life to go and be an artist, doing music, and I wanna do the same thing,” Jackson says. “So, I just started right now.”
How Chuang changed him for the better
Surprisingly, Chuang was challenging for Jackson not because it was physically tougher but because he had to hold himself back. “It’s not exactly like practising wushu, training as I would normally,” he says, “because it was a different zone for me, dancing and doing kung fu at the same time. You need to wipe out the kung fu things, wipe out what you know. And you have to make it so that your dance would not look as ‘hard’ as doing kung fu. This is the biggest, most challenging part in Chuang for me. And the training sessions are tiring, because we would train for 12 hours. When we’re shooting, it’s for more than 12 hours, so it’s tiring. But it’s also challenging and fun.”
Because Chuang is an ‘idol survival’ series, the end goal is to secure a spot in a boy band that would become NexT1DE. The contestants are expected to be an all-rounded performer, music and choreography involved. “My first time ever singing was at Chuang,” Jackson reveals. “And the first stage, I didn’t sing so much because I was rapping. I was focusing on dancing a little bit more, because I know my singing is bad.” His laugh is self-deprecating as he reminisces the moments from the session before he and his group would perform. Anyone who watched the episode can tell that Jackson can indeed sing well, but as their vocal teacher had put it: “I’m 100% sure you can do this, I trust you. But it’s you, you are not trusting yourself.”
“Until my second stage, I had no choice but to go for the song; it was my last song, ‘The Last Fireworks of the Summer Night’,” Jackson goes on. In the same episode, he’d noted that the song “feels sad, but it also feels like it has happiness mixed in”. Conveying his emotions through his musical performance also became something he was particularly worried about on top of the actual singing — and probably not something he ever had to think about when doing wushu. “And that song, it needed kind of a little bit more in terms of vocals. I gave it a shot. I gave it my best shot, and I just hope the crowd liked it. It was my first time actually singing on stage.”
Despite this being his last performance on Chuang, Jackson didn’t let his self-doubt weigh him down; in fact, it has only added to his drive to make it big in the entertainment world. “For me, I got no regrets, because although I was leaving, this is a new start for all of us,” he says, acknowledging the other contestants who have also left the show with him. “When you leave, you get a new start for your future. It’s another new start because you’re going to face new problems, new performances, new crowds… so I got no regrets. I came to Chuang to start my future and although it’s ended now, I gotta find my own future and my own new starting point.”
Finding solace in the future
Jackson first started doing wushu when he was only seven years old. “At first, I saw the seniors of the wushu team and thought they were very cool, doing flips, just doing things like tricking,” he says. The Corkscrew, which he performed on Chuang in the first episode, is also an example of the tricking technique in martial arts, combining kicks with flips and twists, and even dance moves.
“When one athlete leaves his own career, it can be hard for them to change to another thing to do. I will not regret doing wushu, and training for so many years, because wushu gave me a lot of things… my discipline and strong body.. and family, too. A big family.”
“I thought it was very awesome and I wanted to, like, learn it. I tried the newbie class first, once a week until I got interested, then I started to practice more. I was training for more days, went to represent the state and all. And it turns out, my hobby became like another job, I think. I did it for 14 years. When you know something you like the most becomes your job, you really think that you’re losing the part of the interest and the fun. But wushu gave me a lot of things. Like my discipline and my strong body.”
He laughs. Wushu also gave him dance, I remind him, and the determination to perfect it; it was what helped him get past the halfway point of Chuang. “Yeah,” he agrees. But because wushu has been such a big part of his life, leaving it won’t be an option anytime soon, and his future will still likely involve wushu competitions. “All I can say is, if one athlete leaves his own career, it can be hard for them to change to another thing to do. So, I will not regret doing wushu, and training for so many years, because wushu gave me a lot of things… like family, too. A big family.”
Family, or more specifically community, is something Jackson holds quite closely. Even on Chuang, his ability to form bonds with the other contestants — despite meeting for the first time — is natural. “Getting to know the trainees from other countries and making friends with them, but at the same time, it’s like, you gotta ‘challenge them’ as competitors, that was a challenge also,” he opens up. “I didn’t want to see them like competitors. I wanted to see them just as friends. I think the challenging part was my own heart, because I don’t want to lose… but I don’t want to lose my friends, too. My own feelings was my biggest challenge.”
All roads lead back home
So, what exactly does Jackson’s future — or new starting point — look like now? “I will say that I want to focus more on the stage, which includes dancing and singing,” he muses. “And fashion, I think. I’m into modelling as well because of Jackson Wang, because he’s also a model. He’s an icon.”
With wushu now being his ultimate ‘selling point’, Jackson is all geared up to take on the entertainment world. “I’m gonna go into the entertainment industry for now because I want to challenge myself,” he says, with as much steely determination as he must have had back when he had first stood on the Chuang stage. “I want to do interesting things.”
“I don’t want to lose… but I don’t want to lose my friends, too. My own feelings was my biggest challenge.”
editor-in-chief & creative direction MARTIN TEO | assisted by RONN TAN & MALLIE MARAN | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | photography EDMUND LEE (ONE3FOUR STUDIO) | videography POR JIA JUN & STANLEY LOH | art JOYCE LIM | makeup KEVIN LEE | hair CODY CHUA | styled by ISAAC CHONG | assistant stylist ZIYIN TAN | wardrobe COACH
