SINGAPORE - Local actress Hong Huifang thought she was dying.

That was after she had to be taken to hospital after suffering severe chest pain last year.

Hong recounted the incident to the local Chinese media recently during an interview for Recipe Of Life, a new food-themed serial she is filming.

The 60-year-old veteran actress, who is married to fellow actor Zheng Geping, said she has "three highs" - high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar.

She had a health scare due to high blood pressure last year, Lianhe Wanbao reported.

"I woke up in the middle of the night with my chest hurting so much that I couldn't breathe and broke out in a cold sweat. I don't know what's going on and feel like dying," she said.

"I endured the pain until 7am and then woke Geping up to send me to hospital."

The pain in her chest felt like someone had "kicked her in the front and the back" and was so bad that she felt that might fall anytime.

On the way to hospital, she told Zheng about matters such as her bank account password and where she had put the important documents in case something happened to her.

"Luckily the chest pain is caused by high blood pressure and not due to clogged blood vessels," Hong said. "My condition has stabilised and I try not to eat fried chicken skin as much as possible."

Hong, who rose to fame after acting in TV series Samsui Women (1986), has two grown-up children - daughter Tay Ying and son Calvert.

While her husband Zheng, 56, has been following a strict diet to keep up his health and physique since 2009, Hong said she was quite the opposite.

"At that time, what we ate were totally different. He would eat at home first even when we went out to eat," she said.

"When I wanted to go out and have a sumptuous meal, he would order a cup of black coffee without sugar and watched me eat. Eventually, I ate at home as I didn't feel like going out to eat."

She continued: "When we ate fried chicken, he would take out the skin and eat only the breast meat. I would then eat the skin as I feel that 'since you don't eat, I eat.'"

However, Hong is now more conscious of her health.

"My 'three highs" is very serious and my husband says I can't continue eating this way, so I am changing slowly," she said.

Nowadays, when they go out for meals, she will eat the same food as Zheng, but she says she will still eat "good food" occasionally.

"We work so hard for the money so that we can have three meals," she said.

She said her husband and two children also urged her to exercise at home.

"When I say I do housework, they say housework is not exercise but physical work," she said.