Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan recorded a video message especially for the awards presentation for 2006.

View the message as an .avi file (10.2MB)

View the message as a .wmv file (2.3MB)

Transcript of the message as follows:

Good Evening Everybody, I’m Jackie Chan

Firstly I’d like to apologise for not being able to be here in person for this evening’s ceremony. However, I’d like to say to everybody that I am very happy to be a part of the Pearl Awards. Also I am very happy to observe that The Pearl Foundation is gaining in status day by day.

The Pearl Foundation has raised both the economic and cultural profiles of the Chinese Community in the UK. Through the Pearl Foundation the achievement of Chinese people has been highlighted, which has encouraged and created role models for the Chinese as well as the wider communities.

This is the third Pearl Award.

The event allows the community to meet and celebrate the achievements of some special individuals.

These people may not have enjoyed extensive publicity, but this evening, through the awards, in the fields of arts and culture, community services, the media, business and sport, their work are deservedly commended by us all.

I congratulate The Pearl Foundation for another successful award ceremony and applaud all the award winners. The winners motivate us and make us realise that extraordinary deeds can be achieved by ordinary people.

I wish everyone here an enjoyable evening.

Enjoy the night  
Love you all
Bye Bye

Prime Minister Rt Hon Tony Blair

I am delighted to send my best wishes to everyone connected with the 2006 Pearl Awards. The awards provide the Chinese community in the UK with an excellent opportunity to recognise their achievements and talents. They also recognise the contribution the Chinese community make to UK civil society.

I am sure that everyone attending will enjoy the 2006 Pearl Awards. Please accept my best wishes for yet another successful event – and a memorable evening.

Rt. Hon. David Cameron M.P.
Leader of the Opposition.

I am delighted to send my best wishes to everyone attending this year’s Pearl Awards, and especially to those who have been nominated to receive an award.

I believe Britain can be proud of its vibrant, multi-racial society, and of our British identity and shared values. The wide variety of awards, and the tremendous quality of nominations year after year, is testimony to the enormous role which the Chinese community plays in our national life.

It is always good to acknowledge and celebrate special achievement – not least to provide inspiration to others. In the last three years the Pearl Awards have grown from strength to strength, and have established themselves firmly in the national calendar. This does great credit to everyone involved, and especially to the Pearl Foundation, Chinatown – the Magazine, and of course to the late Lord Michael Chan who made such a lasting contribution to our country and will be sadly missed by us all.

I am sure this year’s awards ceremony will be a great occasion.

Mr Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London

I am delighted to send my best wishes to the Pearl Foundation for organising The Pearl Awards 2006.

Now in their third year, these awards have become an established and valuable means of recognising and celebrating Chinese achievement in a range of fields including culture, community and business. Events such as the Pearl Awards provide an excellent advertisement to why London’s cultural diversity is one of its greatest assets.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the nominees and winners of this year’s awards for the outstanding contribution they have made to the life of the Capital.

I hope you all have a successful and enjoyable awards ceremony.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Menzies Campbell C.B.E. Q.C. M.P
Leader of the Liberal Democrats

I send my good wishes on the occasion of the Pearl Awards even which is designed to celebrate the contribution of the Chinese community in Britain.

This even recognises the contributions of individuals from the community. It also acknowledges the efforts they have made towards building our muti cultural society.

The Chinese community has set a good example in all walks of public life in this country. They contribute to the economic prosperity of our nation.

By their hard work they have set an example of how we can build a healthy and prosperous society.

Tony Panayiotou
Director Diversity
Arts Council England

Arts Council England is delighted to sponsor the third annual Pearl Awards through the award for Creative Excellence and we would like to congratulate all nominees under this category. Congratulations in advance too, judging by the fantastic occasions the two previous awards have been, to William Ong and his amazing team both at the Pearl Foundation and ChinaTown – the magazine for what promises to be another a hugely successful cultural and social event.

Arts Council England is the national development agency for the arts. Our vision is to promote the arts at the heart of national life, reflecting England’s rich and diverse cultural identity. Diversity is one of our core priorities. We want to ensure that all people have access to participate in, and develop a wide range of artistic activity.

Over the last two years, in partnership with the British Council, Arts Council England has developed an unprecedented artists exchange programme called Artists Links, operating out of the British Council offices in Shanghai. The purpose is to strengthen the cross-cultural collaboration and exchange between China and England and to generate opportunities for individual artists based in China and England to develop their practice. Some artists have worked at the Pearl River Delta Studio in Guangzhou, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, the Guangdong Contemporary Dance Company and in England artist have been received by Gasworks Studios in London and at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester.

We hope initiatives such as these inspire especially young Chinese people to think of careers in the arts and develop their own practice. We are allocating more resources than ever to diverse artists and there is a great deal that the Chinese artistic community has to offer in modern British society, an offer that transcends centuries of traditions as well as state of the art modernity and at the heart of all this – a community whose own endeavours have enriched host cultures all over the world.

Simon Marshall
Director of Recruitment
The Metropolitan Police

During the past year London has continued to grow as one of the most vibrant and diverse communities in the world.

I would like to acknowledge that an increasing number of colleagues are joining the Metropolitan Police Service from the Chinese community and personally thank them on behalf of all the communities within London for their continued commitment to making London a safer place for us all.

I would like to commend The Pearl Foundation for continuing to highlight the many achievements from the Chinese community and congratulate all those nominated for an award at this year’s event.

World Society for Protection of Animals

WSPA is delighted to be supporting the 2006 Pearl Awards. WSPA believes that the Chinese Community can make a huge contribution to improving international animal welfare and look forward to a successful future partnership with them. We are honoured to be a part of this awards ceremony, for the third consecutive year, that recognises and commends achievements of the Chinese Community, and congratulate this year’s recipients of awards.

Foreign Commonwealth Office

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is pleased to sponsor the Pearl Award for Promotion of Cultural Links & Exchange, which recognises individuals or organisations who have made significant progress in advancing cultural understanding and stimulating cultural links between the UK, China and Asia Pacific.  In doing so, they raise the profile of Chinese people in multi-cultural Britain.

Britain’s ethnic Chinese community plays a key role in the expansion of our cultural relations.  Lunar New Year celebrations have become a major attraction for people from all backgrounds in towns and cities across the UK.  The Lunar New Year celebrations in London’s Trafalgar Square is probably the best established of these, and this year led to a three-month celebration of all things Chinese, “China in London”.

Amongst the wide range of UK interests in China promoting culture as a pillar of diplomacy was the driving force behind the Prime Minister’s announcement, during a visit to China in September 2005, of a new UK-China cultural exchange agreement.  This aims to develop a range of new cultural programmes and exchanges, spanning the 4 major cultural landmarks of the next few years: the Beijing and London Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012, Shanghai Expo 2010 and Liverpool as European City of Culture in 2008.  As part of this exchange agreement, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the British Council launched “Connections through Culture” in July 2006 – a programme to support UK and Chinese cultural institutions and arts practitioners as they expand and extend their relationships with counterparts from the other country.

These are just some of the ways in which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is placing culture at the heart of its deepening relations with China.  We are delighted to continue to support this initiative.

Bill Hughes,
Director General of SOCA

It is a great honour and pleasure to be asked to sponsor this year’s Pearl Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is the UK’s newest law enforcement body, a powerful agency that actually stretches across the world and brings together more than 4000 people from previous National Crime Squad, National Criminal Intelligence Service, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Immigration Service.

One of SOCA’s key objectives is working with different partners across the world in a variety of communities and business area, in a bid to share information and help reduce the impact that organised crime has on everyone, helping to make our communities safer places to live.

As the award for Most Promising Newcomer is aimed at those whose achievements have had a beneficial impact on their local communities, SOCA is proud to be able to celebrate such accomplishments.

Jonny Hon (Dr.), Chairman Global Group (Europe) plc

It gives me great pleasure to extend my best wishes, and those of Global Group (Europe) plc and all our companies, to the 2006 Pearl Awards.

The Pearl Awards fulfil a vital need in recognising, honouring and promoting the unique contributions of the Chinese and Asia Pacific communities to every aspect of the United Kingdom’s vibrant, diverse, and inclusive and entrepreneurial multi-cultural society.

The Chinese community is a well-educated, industrious and law-abiding community, one which finds a welcoming and familiar home in Great Britain, by virtue of our shared history and common values of strong families, secure communities, social responsibility and concern for those less fortunate, together with the vigorous promotion of wealth creation for the ultimate benefit of society as a whole.

Stephen Perry, The 48 Group Club

The 48 Group Club supports the Pearl Awards and views them as an excellent even in building bridges within the British Chinese Community.

We believe there is great talent in the British Chinese Community as these awards demonstrate.

Mr Ben Chapman MP Wirral South, Chaiman of the All Party Parliamentary China Group

I am delighted to be able to send this message of congratulations to the Pearl Awards on the occasion of their third annual awards ceremony. As Chaiman of the All Party Parliamentary China Group, I know only too well the valuable and significant contribution the Chinese community in the UK makes and I am delighted to be able to support the Pearl Awards in their recognition of this important element of our diverse society. Even though it is only in its third year, the Pearl Awards ceremony is already an integral part of the calendar for anyone involved with the Chinese community. I continue to wish it every success.

Lord Dholakia of Waltham Brooks OBE DL

The Pearl Awards is an important event that publicises excellence within the Chinese community and reward those who have promoted it. The Awards serve to provide positive images to our diverse communities in the United Kingdom. I whole-heartedly support this initiative, which contributes in strengthening Britain as a multicultural society, as well as acknowledges the talents of a community that has added a rich flavour to Britain’s national identity. Furthermore, I would like to say how pleasing it is that this year the late Lord Chan has been recognised as a leading contributor to those same values that the awards represent.

Mr Andrew Dismore, Member Parliament for Hendon, Chaiman of the All Party Chinese in Britain Parliamentary Group

As Chair of the All Party Chinese in Britain Parliamentary Group, I pass on my congratulations for the 2006 Pearl Awards. Your wide and diverse range of awards reflects the huge contribution that the Chinese community makes to wider British society.

All the award winners are to be congratulated on their achievement, bearing in mind the fierce competition from so many.

It is wonderful that the Chinese community makes such a huge impact on our life, and as Chair of the All Party Chinese in Britain Group, I am doing all I can to ensure the profile of the Chinese community remains prominent and that the government takes note of the interests of Chinese people living in Britain.

Mr David Tang of Shanghai Tang and China Tang

I am privileged to be one of the sponsors of the Pearl Awards which, under the Pearl Foundation, have become an annual event that entrenches Chinese achievements in the UK. The Awards are unique in bringing together the large Chinese community that has contributed a great deal to the British way of life. They will also strengthen understanding amongst Chinese living in the UK.

Many congratulations to all the nominees at the Pearl Awards. They should all be proud to be recognised.

Mr Trevor Phillips, Commission of Racial Equality.

The CRE is pleased to give its support to the Pearl Awards. The British Chinese community has always made an enormous contribution to our society, and continues to make visible inroads into areas with which it is not traditionally associated. This demonstrates the community’s dynamism and commitment to an integrated Britain. These awards help to raise awareness of the Chinese community and inspire its members to showcase their work and skills.

Crown Prosecution Service for London

As an organisation that values its links with the capital’s Chinese community, the Crown Prosecution Service for London congratulates the nominees and winners of the Pearl Awards.

CPS London is an independent service which charges and prosecutes people arrested by the police for criminal offences. Each year we handle around 246,000 magistrates/court cases and over 22,000 Crown Court Cases. 

Ng Mee Ling, Chair on behalf of Chinese For Labour

Chinese for Labour sends our warmest congratulations to all the nominees and winners of the 2006 Pearl Awards. Your achievements are a true reflection of the positive contribution made by our Chinese community to enrich our diverse and multi-cultural country.