Hong Kong — It is time to celebrate for martial arts superstar Jet Li and his family because his younger daughter, 18-year-old Jada, recently graduated from high school. The teen graduated from the ultra-prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, which is often touted as the best high school in the United States. It costs US$61,950 (S$82,000) a year for boarding students or US$48,020 (S$64,000) without boarding. Jada posted a collection of happy pictures from her commencement on Wednesday (June 9) gushing about the “four years [she] won’t ever forget” at the academy.
Jada posted a photo of herself with her elder sister, 21-year-old Jane. However, neither Jet nor his wife, former actress Nina Li Chi, was seen in any of the photos. It was not certain if they even attended their daughter’s graduation that day. It is not easy to get into Phillips Academy, reported 8days.sg. It is reported that out of the 3,000 applications the school receives every year, only around 13 per cent, or about 390, are accepted in the end.
This is no surprise when it comes to Jet Li’s capable daughters. Jane is now attending Harvard University while Jada’s Instagram bio suggests that she will be heading to Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college that is affiliated with Columbia University. It appears that Nina’s no-nonsense Tiger Mum ways, which included engaging an early childhood educator for her daughters, have really paid off.
Born on April 26, 1963, Li Lianjie, better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese-born Singaporean film actor, film producer, martial artist, and retired Wushu champion who was born in Beijing. After three years of training with acclaimed Wushu teacher Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team.
After retiring from competitive Wushu at age 19, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor, making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably as the lead in Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002), Fist of Legend (1994), and the first three films in the Once Upon a Time in China series (1991–1993), in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-hung./TISG