Hong Huifang shares photos taken with her idol Sylvia Chang at Golden Horse Awards

SINGAPORE – Singaporean actress Hong Huifang may have lost the Best Leading Actress prize at the recent Golden Horse Awards to Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang, but she did not go home empty-handed.

Hong, 61, shared a series of photos she took with the veteran star on Instagram on Tuesday, including a group selfie taken by Hong’s husband, Singaporean actor Zheng Geping, 58, together with Chang, 69, and Taiwan-based Singaporean actress Yvonne Lim, 46.

“In the journey of life, unexpected things often happen,” Hong wrote in Chinese. “Despite failure or success, we have to learn to look for new directions, start new endeavours and make changes.”

Hong was nominated for Ajoomma,

a Singapore-South Korean production in which she portrays a Singaporean housewife obsessed with K-dramas. She is the first Singaporean nominated for Best Leading Actress at the Golden Horse Awards.

She previously admitted she was a huge fan of Chang, who won for her role as a devastated widow in Hong Kong drama A Light Never Goes Out.

Hong, seemingly alluding to her recent success after a 40-year acting career, said: “In the process of working hard, you may not immediately reap rewards. Sometimes you need a little patience, because the seeds of dreams also need time to germinate.”

Even though she missed out on the prestigious Golden Horse Awards, regarded as the Oscars of Chinese-language cinema, Hong won Best Actress at the Asian World Film Festival in November.

She added hashtags at the end of her post to say that Chang was the role model of her acting career, that she looked forward to collaborating with Chang, and she hoped to be as successful as her idol in the future.