1.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
2.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
3.
Mandopop
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Mandopop refers to Mandarin popular music. It is now used as a term to describe popular songs performed in Mandarin. Mandopop is categorized as a subgenre of commercial Chinese-language music within C-pop, Mandopop was the first variety of popular music in Chinese to establish itself as a viable industry. It originated in Shanghai, and later Hong Kong, Taipei, among the countries where Mandopop is most popular are mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. S. to record local music in Asia. The recordings were then manufactured outside China and re-imported by the Gramophone Company’s sales agent in China, the Moudeli Company dominated the market before the 1910s until the Pathé Records took over the leading role. Pathé was founded in 1908 by a Frenchman named Labansat who had started a novelty entertainment business using phonograph in Shanghai around the beginning of the 20th century. It originally recorded mainly Peking opera, but later expanded to Mandarin popular music, later other foreign as well as Chinese-own recording companies were also established in China. Early in the 20th century, people in China generally spoke in their own regional dialect, although most people in Shanghai then spoke Shanghainese, the recordings of the pop music from Shanghai from the 1920s onwards were done in Standard Mandarin, which is based on the Beijing dialect. Those involved in this movement included such as Li Jinhui. Mandarin popular songs started in the 1920s were called shidaiqu. The Mandarin popular songs of the Shanghai era are considered by scholars to be the first kind of popular music developed in China. Li Jinhui is generally regarded as the Father of Chinese Popular Music who established the genre in the 1920s, buck Clayton, the American jazz musician, also worked alongside Li. Li established the Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe, and amongst their singing stars were Wang Renmei, there was a close relationship between music and film industries and many of its singers also became actresses. Around 1927, Li composed the hit song The Drizzle recorded by his daughter Li Minghui, the song however was sung in a high-pitched childlike style, a style described uncharitably as sounding like strangling cat by the writer Lu Xun. This early style would soon be replaced by more sophisticated performances from better-trained singers, in 1931, the first sound film was made in China in a cooperation between the Mingxing Film Company and Pathé. Amongst the best-known of the singer-actress to emerge in the 1930s were Zhou Xuan, Gong Qiuxia, although later singing stars need not also have an acting career, the close relationship between the recording and film industries continued for many decades. Later Yao Lee, Bai Guang, Li Xianglan, Wu Yingyin also became popular, other notable singers of this period include Li Lihua and Chang Loo. In 1940 Yao Lee recorded Rose, Rose, I Love You which later became the first Chinese pop song to be covered by Western singers that was a hit
4.
HIM International Music
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HIM International Music is a Taiwanese independent record label and artist management company established in 1999. It was previously known as Grand Music International Inc and it is an International Federation of the Phonographic Industry member record company. HIM International Music started off as two different labels, Grand Music and Tiger Music, Grand Music had a number of successful artists. Yuan Wei-jen released his first album under Grand Music, and earned a nomination for Best Mandarin Male Performer at the 12th Golden Melody Awards, a while after the nomination, Yuan put his solo career on hiatus, and master produced albums for HIM International artists until 2004. After promotions for their compilation album ended in 2000, Power Station joined Grand Music, in August, Grand Music held a Universal Talent and Beauty Contest to search for new talent. The finals were televised on China Televisions TV Citizen, the winner was Jen Chia-Hsüan, Grand Music eventually selected finalists Chen Chia-Hwa and Tien Fu-Chen as well, putting the three girls into a group called S. H. E. On October 1,2000, Grand Music underwent a name change, on May 16,2002, Tiger Music became HIM Music Publishing, which, to this day, operates under HIM International Music. In 2012, HIM International Music signs with a Singer James, list of record labels Official homepage HIM Channel on YouTube
5.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
6.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
7.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Super Girl (TV series)
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Super Girl or Super Voice Girls was a Chinese singing contest for female contestants, organized by Hunan Satellite Television between 2004 and 2006. The shows official name was Mengniu Yoghurt Super Girl Contest until 2009, later it was known as BBK Music Phone Super Girl Contest, after the company that sponsored the series. It was generally described as the unofficial mainland Chinese version of the television franchise Pop Idol. Despite Super Girls major popularity and success, the show was criticised by Liu Zhongde. He essentially claimed Super Girl was poison for the youth, the program was relaunched in 2009. The Chinese title was changed to Happy Girls though the official English title remains unchanged as Super Girl, in 2011, the Chinese government banned Super Girl from airing, claiming the program to be too long. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television told the Hunan station that Super Girl broke time rules for this kind of show and they should be no more than 90 minutes long, but episodes of Super Girl can last more than three hours. More than 2.5 billion people watched the show, huanan announced a third incarnation of the show on October 30,2015. Auditions for the series closed on April 16,2016, partly inspired by the many spinoffs of the UK show Pop Idol, the competition was open to any female contestant regardless of her origin, appearance, or how she sings. The almost unrestricted audition sessions drew contestants of ages ranging from 4 to 89 years old, the 2005 season attracted more than 120,000 applicants during the preliminary selection rounds, held in the five provinces of Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong, Henan and Zhejiang. Many applicants travelled long distances to take part in the competition hoping to become a star, each contestant was allowed 30 seconds to perform in front of judges and find out if they were selected for the preliminary regional rounds. To prevent another overwhelming audition season, an age of eighteen was later set during the 2006 season. Following the selection of contestants in the five regions, the competition began with the preliminary rounds, preliminaries were held in each of the five locations where auditions were located. Television viewers were able to each of the preliminaries and vote for their favorite singers. Voting was conducted by telephone and text messaging, the regional preliminaries were followed by a weekly broadcast knockout competition held in Changsha, Hunan province. Viewers called in to vote for their favourite singers, and the weakest two—as voted by the judges, the term is derived from kill-or-be-killed multiplayer online games. The singer with the least number of votes was then eliminated, unlike Pop Idol, the last event was contested between the final three, rather than the final two contestants. Unlike American Idol, judges for the competition were selected from different backgrounds in society, a few dozen audience judges were selected in addition to several professional judges
9.
University of Bedfordshire
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The University of Bedfordshire is a public university with campuses in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England. The university was created in August 2006 following approval by the Privy Council by merging the University of Luton and it has 14,400 students, including approximately 4,500 international students. The university entered the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 and achieved a GPA of 2.087 with 34. 7% world-leading or internationally excellent, the top units of assessment were in Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Social Work Social Policy and Administration and English Language and Literature. In 2012 it achieved FairTrade status, the current Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire is John Bercow, the current Speaker of the House of Commons. The University of Luton had its roots in the Luton Modern School, which was established in 1908 and this became Luton College of Higher Education with the merger of Luton College of Technology and Putteridge Bury College of Education in 1976. It obtained university status in 1993, the university was created by the merger of the University of Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort University in August 2006 following approval by the Privy Council. The universitys two campuses are in Luton and Bedford. The university also has a site at Putteridge Bury which is home to its Knowledge Hub, the campus is situated in approximately 30 acres of landscaped gardens. The current building was completed in 1911 and was designed by architects Sir Ernest George and Alfred Yeats in the style of Chequers, having had various redesigns, the campus is home to the universitys postgraduate Business School as well as the universitys Conference Centre. A smaller fourth campus, the University Campus Milton Keynes, became part of the university in 2012, the university’s £34m Campus Centre opened in October 2010. Designed for social activity as well as teaching the Campus Centre incorporates learning zones, there are also several places to eat and drink. The Luton Learning Resource Centre has over 200,000 books, there is also an extensive online library of resources. Luton campus is home to the schools of study, Business, Media, Art and Design, Science, Computing, Law, Psychology. Built in 1911, Putteridge Bury is a mansion set in 30 acres of landscaped gardens and parkland. It is home to the Bedfordshire Business School postgraduate programmes and the universitys Conference Centre, the Bedford campus on Polhill Avenue is about 20 minutes walk from Bedford town centre. The university provides a bus service running between the town centre and the campus. Liberty Park, the recently completed £20m on-campus student accommodation, offers 500 en-suite study bedrooms, the Polhill Library was designed by van Heyningen and Haward Architects as a gateway to the campus. The building was completed in 2001 and provides approximately 360 individual study spaces, teaching space, staff work areas, butterfield is home to a purpose-designed building for Health, Nursing and Midwifery students, and £1m has been invested to offer students appropriate teaching and learning resources
10.
Mandarin Chinese
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Mandarin is a group of related varieties of Chinese spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of Standard Mandarin or Standard Chinese, because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as the Northern dialects. Many local Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible, nevertheless, Mandarin is often placed first in any list of languages by number of native speakers. Most Mandarin varieties have four tones, the final stops of Middle Chinese have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as a final glottal stop. Many Mandarin varieties, including the Beijing dialect, retain retroflex initial consonants, the capital has been within the Mandarin area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as a lingua franca since the 14th century. In the early 20th century, a form based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is the language of the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also one of the most frequently used varieties of Chinese among Chinese diaspora communities internationally, the English word mandarin originally meant an official of the Ming and Qing empires. Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a Koiné language based on various northern varieties, when Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it Mandarin, from its Chinese name Guānhuà, or language of the officials. In everyday English, Mandarin refers to Standard Chinese, which is called simply Chinese. Standard Chinese is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing, with some lexical and it is the official spoken language of the Peoples Republic of China, the official language of the Republic of China, and one of the four official languages of the Republic of Singapore. It also functions as the language of instruction in Mainland China and it is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, under the name Chinese. Chinese speakers refer to the standard language as Pǔtōnghuà in Mainland China, Guóyǔ in Taiwan, or Huáyǔ in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Linguists use the term Mandarin to refer to the group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China. The alternative term Běifānghuà, or Northern dialects, is used less and less among Chinese linguists, by extension, the term Old Mandarin or Early Mandarin is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty. Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of Mandarin in a broader sense, the hundreds of modern local varieties of Chinese developed from regional variants of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. Traditionally, seven groups of dialects have been recognized
11.
Tank (Taiwanese singer)
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Lü Jianzhong, better known by his stage name Tank, is a Taiwanese singer-songwriter. He is currently signed to HIM International Music and his debut album, Fighting was released on February 23,2006. His latest album, The 3rd Round, was released on May 31,2009, Lü was born in Taitung, Taiwan. He is a native Taiwanese, his father is from the Ami people, while his mother is Puyuma, Tank married his girlfriend of two years, MerMer, on September 28,2012. The wedding was planned for the end of 2011 but was postponed due to the unexpected arrival of their daughter, Hua Hua. Tank also suffers from heart disease. He suffered an attack in 2007, and his sister died from a sudden heart attack at the end of 2006. In 2009, he had a cardioverter-defibrillator implanted to regulate his heart beat, before releasing his debut album, Lü helped write songs for Vic Chou and S. H. E, among many other artists. He wrote the music and lyrics for track Letting You Go, by the age of 21, he was already recognized for composing more than 200 songs. He was said to be the big thing after David Tao and Jay Chou for his talents in composing songs. Two songs he composed, Romance of Three Kingdoms and Give Me Your Love, became ending themes of Seven Swordsmen, another song, Tears of a Thousand Years, was used as an ending theme for the drama serial The Little Fairy. His second album Keep fighting was released on 19 January 2007, personal Angel was used for an ending theme of Hanazakarino Kimitachihe, a romantic comedy series. He was later requested by NCsoft to compose the song for the computer game. Intense Battle became the song for that game. In 2007, he recorded a song with his junior, Yoga Lin of Xing Guang Bang, for the idol series Bull Fighting with the same name. He sang a duet in 2012 with Ella Chen from S. H. E from her E. P Wǒ jiùshì called Dǒng wǒ zài ài wǒ which was used in the soundtrack for her movie with Mike He <Bad Girl>
12.
Yoga Lin
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Yoga Lin was born on 1 July 1987. He is a Taiwanese Mandopop singer and the winner of One Million Star, Season 1, during the competition, he once contemplated quitting due to the elimination of his good friend, Eddie Tsai. However, show producers persuaded him to maintain his composure and regain his determination, after winning the first place in Season One, he was signed by HIM International Music along with three fellow contestants, Judy Chou, Peter Pan and Stanly Hsu. They were dubbed the Four Princes of Superstar Avenue, Lin was placed fourth on Yahoo. Taiwan 2007 Top Ten Newsworthy Personalities, on a special episode of One Million Star during the end of Season two, he gave a diversified and theatrical performance of A Little Older originally recorded and composed by Matilda Tao. This performance impressed one of the judges on the show, Yun-Ling Huang so much that she dubbed Lin as the Magician of Music. At the same time, other judges on the same episode heaped praises on him. Before the release of his album titled Mystery Guest in Taiwan on June 3,2009. In May–June 2008, Lin set another record in Taiwan for being the youngest singer and he ended his Yogas Trick Concert Tour in Hong Kong and Singapore in early 2009 and released his second album, Senses Around on October 30,2009. His third studio album, Perfect Life, was released on May 6,2011 and his fourth studio album, fiction, was released on June 22,2012. After beginning his 2012 to 2013 concert tour, FUGUE, his latest Jazz inspired live performance compilation album JAZZ CHANNEL, was released on February 5,2013. During high school, Lin was the singer of a rock band. He then joined another band in his university and continued to perfect his singing techniques and. Having never participated in any formal singing contest before, Lin attended the Kaohsiung audition for the first season of a famous TV singing contest in Taiwan, in the competition, Lin impressed the judges with his vivid interpretation of Steel Rope Walker. His performance was described as “enchanting” by the hostess of One Million Star, Matilda Tao. He was also complimented for the good performances. Lin earned perfect scores cumulatively for over five weeks and a total of nine perfect scores on different occasions. His last five performances, which would count as a result in the final match, accumulated,17,23,23,23,25 points
13.
Sodagreen
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Sodagreen is a Taiwanese indie band formed in 2001. Its members has been unchanged since 2003, Sodagreen emerged in the Taiwanese indie music scene after receiving the Grand Jury Award in the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Festival in 2004, after which it signed a contract with Willlin Music. The band is the first indie band to hold a concert in the Taipei Arena, the band is well known for its main vocalist and songwriter Wu Tsing-Fong, who is prominent for his poetic lyrics, unique performing style and wide vocal range. The band was originally named Soda, but Shih preferred a name with three-syllable, Wu then affixed the word green, his favourite colour, behind Soda, completing the portmanteau. In May 2001, Sodagreen competed in the Golden Melody Cup held by the National Chengchi University, with the support of Shiao-Ying, a judge at the competition, it recorded Peeping for the compilation Taiwan independent compilation 2001, released by TCM. In March 2003, A-Fu and Jia-Kai, also from the National Chengchi University, in July the same year, the band decided to break up upon graduation and mark its dissolution with a final tour. Its first stop was the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Festivals Hot Wave Rock section, in August 2004, Sodagreen were awarded the Grand Jury Award at the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Festival, after which the band was signed by Lins Willlin Music. In September 2005, they released their debut album, sodagreen. Through this album, the band garnered a handful of nominations at the 2006 Golden Melody Awards. In October 2006, they released their album, Little Universe, followed by a single in December- My Future Is Not a Dream, a collaboration with A-pay. In June 2007, Sodagreen were awarded the Best Band Award at the 18th Golden Melody Awards, Wu Tsing-Fong also received the highly coveted Best Melody award for Little Love Song, which was also nominated for best lyrics. Little Universe was nominated for the Best Album award, in November, Sodagreen released their third album, Incomparable Beauty. Shortly after, it held its first major concert, the Absolutely Beautiful Concert, which was held at the Taipei Arena, where it made history by being the first indie band to hold a concert there. The concert holds the record for being the longest concert held at the venue, with Sodagreen playing for five hours. In May 2008, the released the live album Sing With Me. Lover Animal was the official Chinese language theme song for the film Juno and that year at the 19th Golden Melody Awards, they were awarded the Best Band Award for the second time in a row. In 2009, Sodagreen began its Vivaldi Project, planning to record, the band recorded Daylight of Spring in Taidung and released it in May. They then travelled to London to record Summer/Fever, releasing it in September, late that year, the band held a solo concert at the Taipei Arena for the second time, playing for two nights at the Daylight Fever Concert
14.
Faith Yang
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Faith Yang is a pop musician and fashion model. She grew up in Sydney, Australia and studied biology and genetics at the University of Sydney, in 2000, Faith won the Taiwan Golden Music awards for Best Female Performer got nominated for Best Album. After graduating from Sydney University, Yang returned to Taiwan to start a music career and she soon gained recognition at the university and pub circuit in Taiwan while touring with her backing band - Monster. In 1996 she signed with Magicstone records, all three albums were major hits in Taiwan and in 2000 Faith won the Taiwan Golden Music awards for Best Female Performer got nominated for Best Album. Faith did not renew her contract with Magicstone, claiming the label had become too commercial for her style of music, in 2004 it was reported that she had signed with Sony label Silver Fish Records. Her first album with Silver Fish Records, Continuation, was released December 2007, with Self-Selected, Faith also works as a fashion and cosmetics model for companies such as Rado and Neutrogena, as well as continuing to tour on the Taiwan pub circuit. She has also considered a number of acting roles, in 2000 Faith played a lead part in the 20 part web movie 175 Degrees of Colour Blindness. Official site Faith Yang discography at MusicBrainz Faith Yangs Chinese lyrics and English Translation from amw168. com
15.
Plain White T's
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Plain White Ts is an American rock band from Lombard, Illinois, formed in 1997 by high school friends Tom Higgenson, Dave Tirio, and Ken Fletcher. They were joined a short time later by Steve Mast, the group had a mostly underground following in Chicago basements, clubs and bars in its early years. The Plain White Ts was formed in Lombard in early 1997, the group began as a trio, with Higgenson as singer and guitarist, Fletcher on bass guitar and Tirio on drums. The group played mostly local shows in Chicagos suburbs, eventually having gigs at the Metro in Chicagos Wrigleyville neighborhood. As the band began to establish itself in the scene, a fourth member was recruited, Steve Mast. Higgenson broke several vertebrae in a car crash in 1999 while driving the bands van and he was in a back brace for three months and had to learn to walk again. Higgenson changed his song-writing process, choosing songs that were meaningful to him. In 2000, the band recorded its first album, titled Come on Over, in 2002, the band self-financed the recording of Stop, a full-length album that attracted the attention of Fearless Records. While the band toured in support for the album, both Fletcher and Mast left and were replaced by Tim Lopez and Mike Retondo, shortly after in 2003, Tirio decided to switch from drumming to rhythm guitar and a new drummer named DeMar Hamilton was added to the line-up. The 2005 release, All That We Needed, was the first studio album from the reformed line-up, Hey There Delilah was first released on the bands third album, All That We Needed, in 2005. The group recorded Every Second Counts that year, on which Hey There Delilah was added in order to allow it a chance on mainstream radio, the band signed with Hollywood Records, which released Every Second Counts on September 12,2006. That same year, Hey There Delilah reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks, the song was written for the track star Delilah DiCrescenzo, whom Higgenson had met in 2002. The song received two Grammy nominations, and Every Second Counts was certified gold, in early 2006, the band teamed up with Motion City Soundtrack for a winter/spring tour. In 2008, the released the album Big Bad World. The album had two hit singles,1,2,3,4 and Natural Disaster, both were on the American Top 40 at numbers 1 and 2 for three consecutive weeks. By late 2008, the band had joined the Rock Band Live tour with Panic. at the Disco, Dashboard Confessional, later that year, the band played at the Give It a Name festival in the UK. In 2007, the performed the single Our Time Now on an episode of the Nickelodeon television series. Our Time Now was also the song of the ABC Family dramedy series
16.
Ladyhawke (musician)
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Phillipa Margaret Pip Brown, better known by her stage name Ladyhawke, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She took her name from Richard Donners 1985 film Ladyhawke. Brown was part of the Wellington-based band Two Lane Blacktop, before moving to Australia where, in 2004, in 2007 she moved to London, and she relocated to Los Angeles around 2013. Browns debut solo album, Ladyhawke, was released on 22 September 2008 through Modular Recordings and it spawned five singles of which My Delirium was the most successful. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2009, Ladyhawke won Breakthrough Artist in both album and single categories, browns second solo album, Anxiety, was released in May 2012, and her third solo album, Wild Things, was released on 3 June 2016. Phillipa Margaret Brown was born on 13 July 1979 in Masterton and she came from a musical family, with her mother being a singer–guitarist and her stepfather, a jazz drummer. During her childhood, various illnesses and allergies kept her in, at age ten she contracted erysipeloid, a disease that is common in seagulls but had not been seen in humans in New Zealand for twenty years. Her allergies to antibiotics and antihistamines greatly complicated treatment efforts and almost put her into a coma, Brown has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. She believes that the amount of her childhood she spent absorbed in music, be it listening to the radio or to her mothers Beatles. While attending Chanel College, she played in several grunge bands, after high school, Brown moved from Masterton to Wellington. In 2001 in Wellington, Brown formed the band Two Lane Blacktop with some friends and she described the group as being like Iggy and The Stooges meets The Clash. She cites her experience playing the notorious New York City club CBGB with Two Lane Blacktop as being a defining moment, Brown then made the impulsive decision to take her flight to Australia anyway, and she relocated to Melbourne. Brown liked Littlemores music and, in 2004, decided to join, Brown and Littlemore played together for two years, with Brown relocating to Sydney to be closer to the band, as well as other people she enjoyed playing and writing music with. Teenagers song Pony is featured in the 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV, Teenager issued their debut album, Thirteen, as well as the related singles Pony and Bound and Gagged, in 2006. Mess + Noises Craig Mathieson described the album as a pop record, albeit a particularly exotic species that equally suggests creative guile and hints of self-indulgence. Pony is the closest the album comes to cheap genre holidaying, approximating rock attitude when the organic, Brown and Littlemore co-wrote Alone Again and West for Teenager. I was like, Its just like, you know, I had a Myspace page, calling myself Ladyhawke with a couple of rough demos up there. Nick was like, Thats cool, you should follow that up
17.
Eason Chan
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Eason Chan Yick-shun is a Hong Kong singer and actor. He has been praised by Time magazine as a front runner in the generation of Cantopop. The media in Hong Kong ranked him as the next God of Song after Samuel Hui, in 2012, Time Out Hong Kong named Chan as the King of Asian Pop. Chan is ranked #6 in the 2013 Forbes China Celebrity Top 100 List. His Cantonese album U87 was listed in 2005 by Time magazine as one of Five Asian Albums Worth Buying, Chan is a multiple winner of the prestigious Golden Melody Award. In 2003, he won Best Mandarin Male Singer and Best Mandarin Album for Special Thanks To, in 2009, he won Best Mandarin Album for his Mandarin album Dont Want to Let Go. He won his second Best Mandarin Male Singer award in 2015, Chan has earned 100 million HKD in 2014. Eason Chan Yick-shun, born in Hong Kong, went to England to study when he was 12 and he attended St. Josephs kindergarten, St. Josephs College in Hong Kong, Dauntseys School in Wiltshire, England and later Kingston University, studying architecture. Chan returned to Hong Kong before the completion of his degree to participate in the 1995 New Talent Singing Awards Competition in which he won first place. Immediately after his victory, Capital Artists signed a contract with him, Chan received a doctorate honorary degree from Kingston University. Eason Chan is a frequent winner of Asias music awards and he is the second non-Taiwanese singer after Jacky Cheung to win Taiwans Golden Melody Awards. He won Best Male Singer twice in 2003 and 2015, and he has won the prestigious Hong Kongs Most Popular Male Singer Award twice, in the year 2006 and 2007. He also won his first Asia Pacifics Most Popular Singer Award in 2007 and his album U87, released in 2005, has been recommended by Time Magazine as one of the five best Asian albums worth buying. U87 also won the top sale of album in Hong Kong in 2005 and he was Hong Kongs highest selling male artist in 2002,2003 and 2007. He has been one of Hong Kongs top selling artists for all starting from 2000. His concert DVD Get a Life was the highest selling album of 2006, Chan has been praised by critics and fellow musicians alike as one of the top singers of his generation. Since the very beginning of his career, He has been one of the favourites to lead the new generation of Cantopop and he has been described as a breath of fresh air in the HK music scene. Chan has also been successful in his work in the Mandopop scene and he has won numerous awards in both Mainland and Taiwan, most notably Taiwans Golden Melody Awards. Admit It was another work of Chan, which led to a nomination for Golden Melody Awards Best Male Singer
18.
Aaron Yan
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Aaron Yan is a Taiwanese actor and singer. He is one of the members of Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit, Yan was born as Wu Keng-lin in Taipei, Taiwan on November 20,1985. When he was young, he and his family moved to Connecticut, United States, where he has lived in for five years. In 2004, Yan posted some of his pictures on his blogger, in August 2004, he made his acting debut in Taiwanese drama, I Love My Wife. In 2005, after signing with Comic Productions and HIM International Music, Yan featured in Taiwanese dramas, It Started with a Kiss and KO One. In December 2005, he formed a boy band named Fahrenheit with three other Taiwanese artists, including Wu Chun, Jiro Wang, and Calvin Chen. In September 2006, Fahrenheit released their eponymous studio album, Fahrenheit. In 2007, Yan featured in Taiwanese dramas, The X-Family, in January 2008, Fahrenheit released their second studio album, Two-Sided Fahrenheit, and they won a MusicRadio China Top Chart Award for Most Popular Boy Band. In November 2008, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Mysterious Incredible Terminator, in January 2009, Fahrenheit released their third studio album, Love You More and More. In 2010, Yan featured in Taiwanese dramas, Love Buffet, in September 2010, Fahrenheit released their fourth studio album, Super Hot. In March 2011, Yan release his debut extended play, The Next Me, in June 2011, Wu Chun officially announced he left the Fahrenheit. In May 2012, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Alice in Wonder City, in October 2012, he release his debut studio album, The Moment. In June 2013, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Just You, in April 2014, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Fall In Love with Me. In May 2014, he released his extended play, Drama. In June 2014, he realize his third extended play, Cut, in March 2015, Yan debuted in Japan and released his first Japanese single, Moisturizing. In September 2015, he released his second Japanese single, Gelato, in March 2016, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Refresh Man. In June 2017, Yan featured in Chinese drama, Yi Lu Fan Hua Xiang Song, Taipei Dreamin Moisturizing Gelato Monochrome Dandy Aaron Yan on Facebook Aaron Yan on Sina Weibo Aaron Yan at the Internet Movie Database
