Former Miss Chinese International Elise Chan is opening up about the pressures of Hong Kong showbiz and the chaotic road to her marriage on the latest episode of Wong Cho Lam’s travel series Blue Friend, Travel Friend.
In the Jan. 29 episode, Wong and his wife, Li Ya-nan, visit Chan in Vancouver, where she takes them to Grouse Mountain—the spot where her husband, Keung, proposed. But the scenic trip also took a candid turn as Chan recalled the anxiety that once made her flee back to Canada.
A ‘boring’ start and a wild leap
Chan told Wong that her first job was at Playland Amusement Park. She entered the pageant world on a whim, despite her parents’s hopes for a stable career.
“My parents wanted me to get a government job. I found that boring—I’d be typing all day and nearly falling asleep,” she said. “I wanted to do something wilder, so I entered.”
After winning the crown, Chan said the demands of the entertainment industry quickly caught up with her. She struggled with Cantonese, translating scripts at home and memorizing lines in a second language. Wong, her longtime friend, recalled seeing her skin break down behind her ears from stress.
“It was nonstop output—deadlines, scripts, call sheets, everything had to be done,” Chan said. “Besides my skin, I became afraid of being around people.”
When Wong asked whether she meant social anxiety, she agreed: “Yes. Sometimes I was so tired that I was scared to say hi—scared I wouldn’t say it friendly enough, and people would think I was awful.”
A proposal full of wrong turns
The pressure became so overwhelming that Chan decided to fly back to Vancouver and asked friends to set her up on dates. That decision led her to Keung. On the show, she revealed that his Grouse Mountain proposal did not go smoothly at first.
“He planned to bring me back to this mountain and that same restaurant. I was thinking, ‘Is this it?’ So I was eating and waiting… but then we finished and left,” she recalled.
Then Keung said they had to stop by his mother’s place to pick up frozen food and drop off things at church. Only when he led her inside did she find the space filled with balloons, beautiful lights, and music.
Chan teared up when describing their relationship: “He really accommodates me. He treasures me, though sometimes I forget that.”
Humor and honesty
Wong also teased Chan about a “pathological” admirer she encountered while filming in Hong Kong—someone so overly direct it made her uncomfortable. Chan, however, said she had no memory of the incident.
The episode offers a rare mix of humor and vulnerability, reminding viewers that even pageant queens can struggle with self-doubt. It also highlights the importance of stepping away to regain perspective—and the value of friends who know when to bring up old dating stories.
For Chan, the mountain in Vancouver is no longer just a scenic overlook. It is proof that sometimes the best love stories start after a few wrong turns.
