It was about this time last year when I wrote Matthew Perry a letter, finished reading his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, and started further understanding the struggle behind the smiles and fun of Chandler. Flipping through pages of ups and downs, I thought about how wonderful it was to have such an interesting and loving soul with us.
But today that thought turned into a fading hope. I remember scanning through endless headlines and reports, feverishly and silently yelling to myself “he can’t be dead!”, only to see more coverage pouring down on my sinking heart.
Today we lost a man who changed not just our blue and sullen days, but the way we speak, the way we look at hardships in life, and, for those who have suffered from it, the way we combat drug abuse.
I am, in every way, merely a fan of Matthew Perry, yet his passing brought to my mind so many of his on-screen moments and quotes from his book that changed my life. In his book, being labeled Chandler at all times and in every place was not a pleasant experience, so I would like to use this passage as a tribute to this man who’s more than Chandler Bing.

He came back from a perforated bowel, aspiration pneumonia, and an ECMO machine
Reading the first few chapters of his memoir was anything but pleasant. The book begins with a Prologue recording the most horrifying tragedy in his life – his colon surgery. Cumulated drugs finally resulted in five months of medical treatments, and eventually he recovered.
On the last page of this Prologue, he wrote, “As I’ve said, for the entire stay in those hospitals, I was never left alone—not once. So, there is light in the darkness. It’s there—you just have to look hard enough for it.”
His heart stopped for five minutes once.
He was scared to be alone.
He was in trouble when he was famous, but he was strong enough to hide and deal with them in his later life. Since 2001, he “has mostly been sober.”

He wasn’t playing Chandler; He was Chandler
Relating to the early stages of his life, he wrote, “Accordingly, I learned to be funny (pratfalls, quick one-liners, you know the drill) because I had to be—my mother was stressed by her stressful job, and already highly emotional (and abandoned), and me being funny tended to calm her down.”
His mom, Suzanne Perry, was the press secretary for Pierre Trudeau, former Canadian Prime Minister. A divorced family left a Matthew that deeply cared about strangers’ opinions, and gained happiness from constantly trying to make everyone laugh.
When the role of Chandler came, he was devastated because, at the time, he was trapped in another show, L. A. X. 2194. “When I read the script for Friends Like Us (Friends) it was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life. One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn’t that I thought I could play “Chandler,” I was Chandler.”

Thanks for the fun, for the encouragement, and for everything
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Matthew for bringing so much joy to me and generations of people and for lessons on facing the sufferings of life.
Our admiration and affection for you won’t ever cease. Rest in peace.

Jerry Cyan (Li)
October 29, 2023