"You are the legend of our family," Song Dandan wrote about Chloé Zhao after Zhao became the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director. In this week's Chinese Lives, we take a closer look at Song, an accomplished star in her own right.
Zhang Heng was a genuine polymath whose achievements in science, mathematics, cartography, literature, and the arts make him a towering figure in the popular Chinese imagination.
Xue Jinghua, China's ballerina extraordinaire, cut a striking figure in red. Her role as the wronged peasant Wu Qinghua in "The Red Detachment of Women" ensured her place in modern China's cultural lore, even as she performed during a time when all creative projects were for the advancement of the collective.
How Western music and traditional Chinese opera was synthesized to create one of China's most famous orchestral works.
Mei Lanfang was more than just a performer with exceptional poise, a beautiful falsetto trill, and a sharp jaw-line. He helped rework the genre of Peking Opera into what it is today, an intangible cultural heritage and source of national pride.
Meng Po, who resides in the underworld, could remove all the bad memories a soul might possess, giving little thought to skills wiped or knowledge of loved ones lost forever.
Liu Shaoqi was president of China, the handpicked successor to Mao. But he was a bit too bold, too truthful — and flew too close to the sun.
China has the longest high-speed rail network in the world and the second longest network of total railways. But only a century ago, the country actually feared the locomotive, believing it a devilish tool of foreigner powers. Zhan Tianyou helped change that perception.
Shen Congwen was an author of the people, writing about everyday life in rural villages and peppering his stories with regional flavor. He was denounced during the Cultural Revolution and then forgotten, but rediscovered in the 1980s — and would have become China’s first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature if only he’d lived a few more months.