Ethnic minorities in Chinese entertainment

Does she look Chinese to you?

One of the most frustrating things about introducing new Chinese artists are the “they don’t look Chinese” comments. Considering China has 56 official ethnicities with their ancestral homes in China, and who knows how many unofficial ones, and 1.3 billion people, it’s unfair to homogenize any part of China (or of the world ). And according to wikipedia, minority populations are rising at 7 times the rate of the Han Chinese because the One Child Policy only applies to Han Chinese (no, China is not trying to eliminate its minorities via One Child).

Photographer Chen Haiwen recently paid a tribute to the diversity of China by producing a series of photos that captured this diversity. Along with a team of photographers, he traveled across China for a year to take photos of a family from each ethnic group. Those, along with thousands of other photos captured on the trip, were put on display in Beijing’s WangFuJing Street last month. zhouzhzh on youtube has a slideshow of all the photos.

Here’s a spot light on some, definitely not all, minority Chinese artists in pop culture.

Super Girl He Jie

our Yi-group
manager: Super Boy Ji Jie and brand manager for Bacardi
members: two powerful and tomboyish songstresses SM’s lost cause Zhang Liyin
and really lost cause Super Girl He Jie
and boyband Blue Bird Flying Fish‘s 70.
HuHu’s not Yi, but he’s there by association. Maybe Zhang Yunjing can join, too, by marriage. Continue reading

New Year Galas Wrap-up

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CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala has become one of the symbols of the Lunar New Year in China and one of the most extravagant shows that CCTV puts on every year. Jay Chou’s performance was probably the most anticipated event of the night. It consisted of three generations of singers – folk singer Song Zuying, Jay and 9-year-old genius Hou Gaojunjie- singing a blend of Song Zuying’s “Spicy Girls” and Jay’s “Herbalist Manual.” Apparently, singing with Song Zuying has been a dream of Jay.

Update: Jay also said that he has already invited Song Zuying to sing in a duet with him. He says he wants to compose a duet just for her.

Herbalist Manual and Give you a EasternĀ  jasmine

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The First Wind and Cloud Awards Ushers in a New Wave of Chinese Singers

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Note: This was written a while ago, on 12/23 when it was filmed, but it was actually aired during New Years. I would have posted this earlier, except I really, really wanted to find a HQ video of Wang Yuexin singing Guang. Which I did end up finding, but haven’t finished downloading.

With a dolphin pitch, Wang Yuexin’s “Guang” opened the first annual Newcomer’s Feng Yun Bang (Wind and Cloud Awards). In attendance are all of the new boybands as well as most of the new idol singers. Feng Yun awards have been established since 2001, but this is the first ceremony specifically designed for newcomers, signifying that newcomers to the Chinese music scene are coming in large numbers.

Wang Yuexin singing Guang. I practically made this post just for him, so you’d better watch the vid.

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New Year with the stars

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ee media 2009 family portrait

Wang Leehom, Jolin Tsai, SJ-M, Mayday, Fish Leong, Zhang Liyin, Rene Liu, and the entire ee media family will all spend New Year’s Eve on Hunan tv and ctv’s new year countdown concert. Rumored guests include the new and original F4 as well as David Beckham. Continue reading

Chinese Celebrities When They Were Young

I said I would do a special fun post in exchange for someone making my banner when site hit 10,000. Well, here it is as promised, although nobody ever made me a banner. :( This is still incomplete…I don’t have a few people in here, and I wanted to put an after pic of everyone, but I got way too tired of that so I only put some for some people I didn’t think people would know (like all the mainland guys apparently), but eventually I will update this and make it the most comprehensive Chinese celeb baby picture list ever.

Love or hate her, you’ve got to admit Liu Yifei was one of the most adorable children ever.

More of cute adorable children behind the cut. I think it’s really rare for Chinese people to do plastic surgery (as of now) so this won’t be one of those “spot the differences” posts. This took a lot of time and effort to put together, so PLEASE DO NOT COPY AND POST ANYWHERE ELSE, w/o permission.

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