At around 11 p.m. on December 31, 2018, in Xuyong County, Sichuan Province, Tan Songyun’s mother and two friends were walking along the road when a car suddenly struck them from behind. All three were injured in the violent collision, with Tan’s mother suffering particularly severe injuries. Instead of stopping to help, the driver immediately fled the scene, leaving the victims lying on the road on a rainy New Year’s Eve.
Tan Songyun’s mother was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and underwent treatment for 23 days, but she never regained consciousness. For the family, those 23 days were perhaps the longest of their lives, with every hope resting on the possibility that their loved one might survive. In the end, however, the miracle they desperately hoped for never came. On January 23, 2019, she died from extremely severe brain injuries accompanied by multiple organ failure, leaving her only daughter to face a life without the mother who had always been by her side.
Following an investigation, police identified the driver as Ma Minghong. What made the tragedy even more painful was that Ma was not a stranger to Tan Songyun’s family. He had attended elementary school with the actress, while their fathers had served together in the military and were once comrades. The two families had known each other for years, but after that fateful night, their relationship would forever be tied to an irreparable loss.
Ma Minghong did not turn himself in to police until January 2, 2019, two days after the accident. In August 2020, the case went to a public trial that attracted more than 10 million online viewers. Tan Songyun appeared in court dressed in black as the victim’s only daughter. During her emotional statement, she said that one year and eight months had passed since her mother was struck, yet she had never received a sincere apology from the person responsible.
Perhaps that was what made the pain even more difficult to leave behind. An apology could never bring her mother back, but at the very least, it could have shown that the person responsible understood the consequences his actions had inflicted on an entire family. Yet according to what was presented in court, the apology Tan Songyun had waited so long to hear never came.
On September 19, 2020, Ma Minghong was sentenced to six years in prison for the traffic offense. The court also ordered compensation totaling 920,000 yuan to Tan Songyun’s family and other parties involved under the accompanying civil judgment. To many people, that would be a substantial amount of money, but for a daughter who had just lost her mother, no figure could ever compensate for such a loss.
Even so, Tan Songyun did not keep the compensation. She decided to donate the entire amount to support families whose loved ones had been involved in traffic accidents. According to her lawyer, she had already made the decision shortly before the verdict was announced because she believed her mother’s life could never be assigned a monetary value. More than anything, she hoped similar tragedies would not happen again.
Tan Songyun was born and raised in Xuyong, the same place filled with childhood memories of growing up alongside her mother—and ultimately the place where she lost the person she loved most. Later, when she played Li Jianjian, a young woman who lost her mother at an early age in Go Ahead, Tan Songyun’s performance moved many viewers with the emotional authenticity of scenes in which her character missed her mother. Perhaps part of that authenticity came from the fact that she did not have to imagine such grief; in real life, she had already experienced the pain of losing her own mother.
Her mother could never return, and the apology she once waited for could never change the past. Tan Songyun chose to use the entire compensation payment to help other families, turning her mother’s loss into a reminder of the devastating consequences of driving after drinking. An accident may happen in only a few seconds, but the pain it leaves behind can sometimes remain with those who survive for the rest of their lives.
Sources: kenh14