Chinese actress Li Bingbing promotes her biography "Li Bingbing: Shi Nian Ying Hua" at a press conference in Beijing on January 7, 2009. [thebeijingnews.com]

How did Chinese actress Li Bingbing get to where she is today? Who was her first love? The award-winning actress answers both questions in her new autobiography.

"Some time in 2007, I suddenly realized that it had been ten years since my university graduation," Li Bingbing said on Wednesday at a press conference in Beijing, where she launched her first book, "Li Bingbing: Shi Nian Ying Hua" ("Li Bingbing: Ten Years in Film").

"Time flies by at a frightening pace, and I wanted to have a keepsake for myself," the actress explained.

The book chronicles Li Bingbing's growing pains, her first romance, and how she became a star. Accompanying the text are dozens of previously unpublished photos of her.

The actress plans to donate the copyright royalty from her book's first version, a total of 50,000 yuan (US$7,317.45), to the United Nations Children's Fund.

Chinese actress Li Bingbing promotes her biography "Li Bingbing: Shi Nian Ying Hua" at a press conference in Beijing on January 7, 2009. [thebeijingnews.com]

Li Bingbing was born in February, 1976 in Harbin, northeastern China's province of Heilongjiang. She graduated from the Shanghai Drama Institute in 1997, and made her silver-screen debut two years later in Zhang Yuan's "Seventeen Years".

The 2006 film "The Knot" won Li Bingbing the Best Actress title at several awards, including the Huabiao Awards, the top government honor for Chinese film stars.

Last year, Li Bingbing made her name known internationally by working with Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the action film "The Forbidden Kingdom".

Besides her acting career, Li Bingbing has been given the honorary title as a Cultural Ambassador for China by the South Korean government.

(CRI January 9, 2009)