A beautiful Sunday with Maria
Vocal powerhouse Cordero wows with her voice and charisma
PETALING JAYA: What a beautiful Sunday it was for the hundreds who got the chance to listen to veteran Hong Kong artiste Maria Cordero sing and share personal stories about how she found success despite the odds stacked against her.
The vocal powerhouse wowed the crowd with her voice and charismatic personality. Her candour and wit had the crowd in peals of laughter in one instant, and blinking back tears as she moved the crowd with her stories of struggle and hardship in the next.
She recounted how she was offered the chance to go for various slimming treatments to lose weight but she refused because she was, after all, Fei Ma (Fat Mama).
“I told them that I am Fat Mama ... I don’t need to diet. If you want me to lose weight, pay me cash.
“One of them asked me how much I wanted. I asked for a million and she agreed! But I didn’t want to go on any of their machines. I told them I could lose the weight, 35kg on my own.
“For five months, I walked every morning and evening for 45 minutes and didn’t eat fried food, and no sugar and no salt,” she said, showing the cheering audience photos of herself weighing 58kg, after losing 36kg.
When she was off the programme, Cordero revealed that she immediately ordered a chicken leg and a thick sizzling beef steak.
“I mean, five months is a long time. I had missed the sound of a sizzling steak ... in fact, I’m salivating now just thinking of the sound and smell,” said the 63-year-old Macau-born singer, actress and cooking show host.
The funny lady was brought to tears at the end of her talk. She was so moved by the support shown to her by the crowd who gave her a standing ovation and cheered for an encore performance.
Cordero, of course, acceded to the request and sang Daniel Boone’s classic hit Beautiful Sunday and invited everyone to sing and dance along, which they happily did.
She urged women not to look at themselves as being “burdened with two jobs at home and at work” but to realise that they were capable of doing anything because they were women.
She shared stories about how she reinvented herself after she found herself close to broke because of the many curveballs life kept throwing at her.
“Everyone looks at me now and sees a successful singer. But there were two times in my life when I lost everything. I didn’t tell any- one. I just packed my bags and took five or six dresses with me and left for China where I sang at every karaoke place I could find for six months without a break. Why? Because I had responsibilities. I had my six children to look after, my mother and my family. That was my motivation, and that is where my energy came from. It’s the same with all women. We don’t beg. We work hard,” she said.
Cordero expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to speak at the WOW event because it forced her to look back at her life.
“I hadn’t thought about these stories – how I had beaten the odds – in a long time, and only as I was preparing for this over the last few days, I was able to recollect all these wonderful memories,” she said.
It’s the same with all women. We d don’t beg. We work hard.
Maria Cordero