jackie was born chen gang shen in hong kong on april 7, 1954. his newily arrived immigrant parents almost sold him at birth to a britsh doctor for $26 becausethey could not afford to feed himhe says laughing: " because i was a large fat baby i was given the nickname a - puowhich means cannonball i was six when we moved to australia and my schoolteacher there thought i said my name was paul but i could not pronounce paul very well so i was called steve one of my friends did not like the name steve so he would introduce me as jack chan i added on they because jacky has a better rhythm then raymond chow [ of golden harvest ] changed my name tojackie " compared to many other mainland refugees ( as aresult of china 's communist revolution ) the chan family had it fairly easy his parents worked for the french ambassador his mother as a maid after a year in australia jackie was sent back to hong kong alonehe signed a ten - year contract with yu zhanyuen to learn chinese opera jackie says: " when i joined the school i wanted to learn kung fu i was asked if i want to join for three,five,or ten years i didn't know how long these times were, so i just chose ten Ooops ! Waaa ! that is a long time " at age 8 between the 17 hours of intense opera traininghe world appear in old - style hong kong singing films he even had a role in the world of suzie wong from 1962 to 1982 jackie had credits in 28 films not including his work as an extra or his important break when he was the stunt double for the dreaded mr. suzuki in bruce lee 's ching wu men or the chinese connection .