Sorry sorry

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!

Leehom Wang

QUICK FACTS

• born in Rochester, NY
• parents immigrated to NY from Taiwan
• attended Williams College and Berklee School of Music
• received a recording contract after entering a talent contest in Taiwan while visiting his grandma in 1995
• has since made 13 albums + one Japanese album
• was one of the torchbearers for the Beijing Olymic Games and performed at the closing ceremony
• began his acting career in a Hong Kong action movie and has since worked with Ang Lee and Jackie Chan
• latest projects are his directorial debut Love in Disguise and a new album, The Eighteen Martial Arts

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Leehom is everywhere in Greater China!





Visiting China since 2001, I'd always wondered why this one person was on every bottle of Wahaha mineral water. I just couldn't understand who would want to be Wahaha's human mascot and assumed that he was either a Taiwanese drama heartthrob or a popstar.

It turns out that Wahaha, the hugest Chinese water & beverages company of all time, was looking for a new young singer's face to represent them, and at the time, Leehom already had a solid fanbase in Taiwan and was looking to expand his audience to Mainland China.

Kaiser Kuo

QUICK FACTS

• born in New York
• graduate of U.C. Berkeley and University of Arizona
• was a part of the band Tang Dynasty from 1988-1999
• currently in the band Spring and Autumn and AC/DC tribute band, The Dirty Deeds
• has written for the Red Herring and has a column in the The Beijinger
• was director of digital strategy for Oglivy China
• is now Baidu's director of international communications
• lives in Beijing with his wife Fanfan and two kids

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Hotties.

Kaiser Kuo (Guo Yiguang) was born in 1966 in New York to immigrant parents and grew up listening to the Who, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and others that would totally influence his life as a musician and writer.

Ang Lee

QUICK FACTS

• born in Taiwan
• lives in New York
• graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and New York University
• nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
• received Academy Award for Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (2005) along with seven other nominations
• has also won awards at the Berlin Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, British Academy Film Awards, among others
• latest films are Lust, Caution (2007), Taking Woodstock (2009), and Life of Pi (2012)
  

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Ang Lee was born in 1954 to parents who had come to Taiwan after the Communist victory in the Mainland. His father wanted him to become a professor, but Ang failed the the University Entrance Examination and later studied at an arts university in Taiwan. In 1979 he went to the US to study theatre at UIUC and did his MFA at NYU.

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.

Yo-Yo Ma

QUICK FACTS

• born in Paris
• moved to New York when he was 5
• graduated from Juilliard School of Music and Harvard
• has honorary doctorates in music at both Harvard and Princeton
• has made over 80 albums and won 17 Grammy Awards, including a Latin Grammy, along with many prestigious music awards including the National Medal of the Arts
• has played on movie soundtracks including that of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
• performed on the site of the WTC in 2001 and at the Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002
• has performed for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy (1962), and Obama (2009)
• created the Silk Road Project in 1998 to put into cultural exchange musicians from various countries
• USDS CultureConnect Ambassador since 2002
• UN Ambassador of Peace since 2006
• on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities since 2009

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Yo-Yo Ma was surrounded by music from a young age: his father was a music professor and his mother a mezzo-soprano singer. They had both immigrated from Mainland China and met in France, living there through WWII and later settling in New York City in 1961.

Ma was homeschooled by his parents. As a toddler he wasn't feelin' the violin and promised his parents to stick with the cello at about age six, and by the age of eight had already played at the White House for President JFK and debuted in Carnegie Hall along with his sister (on piano).