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Because Hangin' with the Huaren in the short period of this blogging project could not cover all of the Chinese Americans who have their careers or part of their careers in Greater China, we will list them here and one day in the near future give them the coverage that they ought to have:

Flora Chan -- Hong Kong actress from Boston

Jeff and Stanley Huang -- Taiwanese performers (L.A. Boyz, Machi) from Los Angeles

Justin Lo -- Cantopop pop singer from New York

Khalil Fong --  Hawaii-born soul singer based in Hong Kong

Joanna Wang -- Taipei-born folk singer raised in Los Angeles

Know any more? Leave a comment, and I'll add your suggestion to the list!

Coco Lee

QUICK FACTS

• born in Hong Kong
• family lived in San Fransisco for a while
• while visiting Hong Kong with her sisters at the age of 17, she sang a Whitney Houston song at a talent contest hosted by Hong Kong channel TVB and received an offer
• has since released too many albums to count, including Coco Lee (1996) and Exposed (2005) (English)
• sang the Mandarin versions of "Colors of the Wind" and "Reflection" and did the Mandarin dub for Disney's Mulan (1998)
• has done duets with Jacky Cheung, Van Ness Wu, and non-Chinese singers including Kelly Price and Julio Iglesias
• was friends with Michael Jackson
• performed at the 73rd Academy Awards
• sang a song for the Beijing Olympics, "Forever Friends"
• is a YouthAIDS Ambasssador in Thailand
• married to president of trading group Li & Fung, Canadian Bruce Philip Rockowitz
• recently projects include a song for the Shanghai Expo and the second leg of her East2West World Tour

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Coco Lee has had a remarkable number of firsts as an Asian pop singer in the international music scene. A whole ten years after her crossover debut, she has been listed by E! Entertainment as one of the world's 25 sexiest divas ahead of Fergie, Madonna, and J. Lo.

Baccarat Hong Kong, June 2009

While she spent her younger years in Hong Kong, at age ten, she and her two older sisters relocated to the US with their mother, who was going to med school in California.
Young Coco totally loved listening to Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. It was after high school that she returned to Hong Kong and entered the talent contest through which she was discovered.

Daniel Wu

QUICK FACTS

• born in Berkeley, California
• parents immigrated from Shanghai and met in the US
• has been a student of kungfu since age 5
• studied architecture at University of Ohio
• upon friends'/sisters' suggestion began modeling, thus beginning his career in Asia
• first movie role was in an HK gay romance Bishonen alongside Stephen Fung and Shu Qi in 1998
• has since starred in more than 40 movies
• is signed onto Jackie Chan's company
• has been nominated for the Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Awards
• won best new director at Hong Kong Film Awards for his mockumentary The Heavenly Kings
• has homes in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing
• married to VJ and model Lisa Selesner

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"Shanghai is my hometown."

"When I'm in the United States, they do not think of me as an American. In Hong Kong, Hong Kong people do not feel that I am Chinese. So I would always tell myself, I am a citizen of the world"

-- Daniel Wu, Shanghai Times interview



Young Daniel Wu trained in kungfu as his Shanghainese parents reminded him to never forget that he was Chinese. After graduating from college, he went backpacking in Asia to feel connected to his roots. Then he became a model in Hong Kong:


Note: This is actually a 2009 Men's Vogue cover and not from his early modeling days.

And now, he lives in China making his career as an actor, a director, and--more recently--as a producer.

MC Jin

QUICK FACTS

• born in Miami
• became famous for rap battling on Black Entertainment Television's Freestyle Fridays
• has made mixtapes and 4 albums, including his debut The Rest is History (2004) and ABC (3007)
• acted in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
• has done songs with Kanye West, Wyclef Jean, and Leehom Wang
• featured in the documentary 1040 (2010) along with Van Ness Wu
• will play Bruce Lee's BFF in Bruce Lee, My Brother (2010)
• currently living in Hong Kong

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Jin grew up in a neighborhood of Miami with a large African-American population and early on began to have an interest in hip-hop and rap. His parents were alarmed and ashamed that their son was like a black kid.

Bruce Lee

QUICK FACTS

• born in San Francisco
• went to Seattle Central Community College and University of Washington
• founded his own martial arts schools
• established his own form of martial arts and philosophy called Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do
• trained students such as Joe Lewis and Chuck Norris
• did 32 movies, including Fists of Fury and Way of the Dragon (1972)
• could throw grains of rice into the air and catch them using chopsticks
• is totally world-famous and a pop culture icon
• in Time Magazine's "100 Most Important People of the Century"

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baby Bruce with his parents

Bruce Lee was born in 1940 in San Francisco. His parents moved back to Hong Kong when he was a baby and were stuck there during the Japanese occupation. They sent Bruce back to the United States when he was 18 to escape the dangerous environment of HK in the 40s and 50s (he was getting into a lot of street fights) and to go for his higher education.

"All types of knowledge ultimately mean self-knowledge."
-- Bruce Lee, Pierre Berton interview (1971)