TaiwanDNA.com Homepage

 

Women and Men Who Are the Pride of the Taiwanese People

 

Singers

 

A-mei

A-mei (阿妹), also known by her birth name Zhang Huimei or as Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹), is an aboriginal Taiwanese pop singer and occasional songwriter. She has frequently been called a diva of the Mandarin pop music scene, as well as the "Pride of Taiwan".

 

 

 

 

Teresa Teng

Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), sometimes spelled as Teresa Tang or Teresa Deng, was a legendary and influential C-pop singer from Yunlin County, Taiwan. She enjoyed immense popularity amongst all Chinese-speaking communities and in the rest of East Asia, particularly in Japan, for around 30 years. Teng was known for her folk songs and romantic ballads, which remain popular to this day.

 

 

 

Jody Chiang

Jody Chiang , or Jiang Hui (江蕙) is a Taiwanese popular singer often called The Queen of Taiwanese music. She began recording in the 1980s and maintains an active career today. Her trademark ballads and folk songs are typically sung in Taiwanese. Her role in Taiwan's popular music scene is often compared to that of Teresa Teng.

 

 

Luo Dayou

Luo Dayou or Lo Ta-yu （羅大佑）is an influential Taiwanese singer-songwriter who, during the 1980s, revolutionized Chinese pop and rock music with his melodic lyrics, his love songs, and his witty social and political commentary that he infused in his more political songs, often to the point that some of his songs were suppressed in Taiwan and China during the 1980s. He is recognized as a major cultural icon in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.

 

Jay Chou

Jay Chou (周杰倫) (born January 18, 1979) is a Taiwanese musician, singer, producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times.

 

 

 

 

Judy Ongg

Judy Ongg (翁倩玉) is an actress, singer, author and woodblock-print artist from Taiwan. Born in Taiwan, she graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and after that, she changed her nationality into Japanese. Her career has spanned more than four decades.

 

 

 

 

 

Actors

 

Takeshi Kaneshiro

Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) is a famous Asian actor of mixed heritage - his father is Okinawan (Ryukyu Islands) and his mother is Taiwanese.

 

 

 

 

 

Shu Qi

Shu Qi (舒淇) is the stage name of a Taiwanese actress born Lin Li-Hui (林立慧). Her stage name is occasionally romanized as Hsu Chi, Shu Qui or Shu Kei (Cantonese). Her name is sometimes seen in the Western order as Qi Shu.

 

 

 

 

Yang Lihua

Yang Lihua is a famous, influential, Taiwanese opera actress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Directors

 

Ang Lee

Ang Lee (李安) is an Academy Award-winning Taiwanese American film director.

 

 

 

 

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Hou Hsiao-Hsien (侯孝賢) is an award-winning film director and a leading figure of Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement.

 

 

 

 

Models

 

Lin Chi-ling

Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) is a Taiwanese model. She is the official spokesperson for China Airlines, appearing in company commercials and calendars. Some of the nicknames given to her include: Bing QiLin (冰淇淋) ("ice-cream"), ChiLing, Ling-Ling, and Chiling Lin.

 

 

 

 

Fashion Designers

 

Jason Wu

Jason Wu (吳季剛) (born in Taipei, Taiwan) is a Manhattan-based American fashion designer.

 

 

 

 

 

Photographers

 

Deng Nanguang

Deng Nanguang (鄧南光), pioneer of Taiwanese photography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lulu Shur-tzy Hou

Lulu Shur-tzy Hou (侯淑姿) a Taiwanese photographer whose images explore gender issues and give voice to socially disadvantaged women.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painters

 

陳瑞福 (Chen Ruey-fu)

 

 

 

 

吳天章 (Wu Tien-chang)

 

 

 

 

 

 

黃銘昌 (Huang Ming-chang)

 

 

 

 

 

 

李梅樹 (Li Mei-shu)

 

 

 

 

 

 

陳澄波 (Chen Cheng-po)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

洪通 (Hon Ton)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writers

 

Wu Zhuoliu

Wu Zhuoliu (Wu Chuo-liu; 吳濁流) was an influential Taiwanese journalist and novelist. His experiences during the colonial period, including fifteen months (January 1941-March 1942) spent on the mainland, served as an inspiration for his most famous work, Orphan of Asia, a semi-autobiographical account of the experiences of a fictional protagonist -- Hu Taiming -- during the course of the colonial period. This work, which highlighted the ambiguity and tension inherent in being Taiwanese, has since become a key text in the contentious subject of Taiwanese identity.

 

 

 

Huang Chunming

Huang Chunming (黃春明, also Hwang Chun-ming) is an influential Taiwanese literary figure and teacher. Huang writes mainly about the tragic and sometimes humorous lives of ordinary Taiwanese people, and many of his short stories have been turned into films, including The Sandwich Man (1983).

 

 

 

 

Li Ang

Li Ang (李昂; real name Shih Shu-tuan with Li Ang being her pen name) is a Taiwanese feminist writer. After graduating from Chinese Culture University with a degree in Philosophy, she studied drama at the University of Oregon, after which she returned to teach at her alma mater. Her major work is The Butcher's Wife (殺夫: 1983, tr. 1986), though she has a copious output. Feminist themes and sexuality are present in much of her work. Many of her stories are set in Lukang.

 

 

 

Lung Ying-tai

Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) (born 13 February 1952 in Kaohsiung), is a celebrated essayist and cultural critic, with a total of 17 published titles to her credit in Chinese. Lung's poignant and critical essays contributed to the democratization of Taiwan.

 

 

Bo Yang

Bo Yang (柏楊), also sometimes called Bai Yang, was a Chinese language writer based in Taiwan.

One of his best known books is The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture (醜陋的中國人) published in Chinese in 1985 and in English translation in 1992. During his imprisonment, Bo Yang wrote a number of works on Chinese history.

 

 

Sanmao

Sanmao (三毛), literally "three hairs" though it is not considered to have a meaning, was the pseudonym of the popular Taiwanese author Chen Ping.

Sanmao's books deal mainly with her own experiences studying and living abroad. They were extremely well-received in both Taiwan and the Mainland China, and they remain very popular.

 

 

 

 

Chiung Yao

Chiung Yao or Qiong Yao (瓊瑤) (born 陳喆 April 20, 1938 in Sichuan, China) is a popular Taiwanese romance novelist. Many of her works have been made and remade into movies and TV series. During 1990s, her novels and TV series adapted from her works were a hit in Taiwan and Mainland China. It also gain popularity in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia. Among her many novels, Huan Zhu Ge Ge, or "Princess Returning Pearl" in English, is by far the best-known and popular.

 

 

 

 

Historians

 

Su Beng

Su Beng, also known as Shih Ming (史明), whose given name is Shih Chao-hui (施朝暉; Si Tiau-hui), is a Taiwanese dissident and political activist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Politicians

 

Peng Ming-min

Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) is a noted Taiwan independence activist and politician.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musicians

 

Lin Cho-liang

Lin Cho-liang (林昭亮, usually written Cho-liang Lin in English), born in 1960 in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is a Taiwanese American violinist who is renowned for his appearances as a soloist with major orchestras. He founded the Taipei International Music Festival in 1997, the largest classical music festival in the history of his native country, performing to an indoor audience of over 53,000.

 

 

Composers

 

 

Teng Yu-hsien

Teng Yu-hsien (鄧雨賢) was a Taiwanese Hakka musician. He is noted for composing many well-known Hokkien songs. Teng named himself a Japanese-style pen-name as Karasaki Yosame (唐崎夜雨) and a formal name called Higashida Gyōu (東田曉雨).

 

 

 

 

Tyzen Hsiao

Tyzen Hsiao (蕭泰然) is a Taiwanese composer of the neo-Romantic school. Many of his vocal works set poems written in Taiwanese, the mother tongue of the majority of the island's residents. His compositions stand as a musical manifestation of the Taiwanese literature movement that revitalized the island's literary and performing arts in the 1970s and 1980s. Hsiao's career in music includes additional success as a pianist and conductor.

 

 

Architects

 

C. Y. Lee

C. Y. Lee (李祖原) is a Taiwanese architect based in Taiwan, born in Guangdong, China. He directed the design of Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper in that time, as of 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

Puppeteers

 

黃俊雄 (Huang Chun-hsiung)

黃俊雄出身臺灣雲林縣虎尾鎮，是黃海岱的次子，並曾連任兩屆台灣省戲劇公會理事長。14歲起，隨父學習布袋戲。其作品《雲州大儒俠》是台灣電視布袋戲的經典作品。

 

 

 

 

 

Athletes

 

Chien-ming Wang

Chien-ming Wang (王建民) (born March 31, 1980 in Tainan City, Taiwan) is a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball. He was initially signed as an amateur free-agent for the 2000 season, playing for the Staten Island Yankees. He has come to be known as the Yankees ace pitcher over the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

 

 

Yani Tseng

Yani Tseng (曾雅妮) is a professional golfer from Taiwan currently playing on the LPGA Tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Missionaries

 

George Leslie Mackay

George Leslie Mackay (馬偕 or 偕叡理; Pe̍h-oē-jī: Kai Jōe-lí or Má-kai) was the first Presbyterian missionary to northern Formosa (Taiwan). He served with the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. Mackay is among the best known Westerners to have lived in Taiwan.

 

 

 

 

 

Business Entrepreneurs

 

Chang Yung-fa

Chang Yung-fa (張榮發) is the founder and Group Chairman of the Evergreen Group.

 

 

 

 

Momofuku Ando

Momofuku Ando (安藤 百福) was the Taiwanese Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd., and the inventor of world's first instant noodles and cup noodles. He was dubbed as Mr Noodle.

 

 

Shi Wen-long

Wen-long Shi (許文龍) is a Taiwanese businessman and the founder of Chi Mei Corporation, the largest maker of ABS resin in the world. Shi has been ranked among Forbes' World's Richest People.

Shi is an amateur performing concert violinist. He founded the Chi Mei Museum, in which he collects several valuable string instruments made by Antonio Stradivari or Guarneri del Gesù.

 

 

 

Ray Ho Lee

李瑞河 (Ray Ho Lee)，曾是三餐吃地瓜葉的貧困茶農子弟，1961年在台南創業，開設了第一家「天仁茗茶」，昔日賣茶郎變成了十七家天仁關係企業的董事長。

Founder of Ten Ren Tea.

 

 

 

 

Demos Chiang

Demos Yu-bou Chiang (蔣友柏) is a Taiwanese businessman. He founded DEM Inc. (橙果設計), a popular design studio in Taiwan in July 2003 and has served as its chairman since then. He is also known for being the great-grandson of the late Republic of China (ROC) President Chiang Kai-shek and the grandson of late President Chiang Ching-kuo.

 

 

 

Scientists

 

Yuan Tseh Lee

Yuan Tseh Lee (李遠哲) is a chemist. He was the first Taiwanese-born Nobel Prize laureate, who, along with the German-Canadian John C. Polanyi and American Dudley R. Herschbach won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986 "for their contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes."

 

 

 

 

 

Sung-Yang Lee

Sung-Yang Lee (李淳陽) is a Taiwanese entomologist, photographer and writer, known for his entomologic firms. In April 1975, the BBC made a special documentary (The Insect World of Dr. Lee) about him.

In Taiwan, he is also called as "Taiwanese Jean Henri Fabre."

 

 

 

 

Marie Lin

Marie Lin (林媽利; "台灣血液之母") is a Taiwanese geneticist, recipient of the Helena Rubinstein Award for Women in Science

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medical Doctors

 

蔡阿信 (Tsai A-xin)

Tsai A-xin, Taiwan's first female medical doctor.

 

 

 

 

Tu Tsung-ming

Tu Tsung-ming (杜聰明), was the first Doctor of Medical Sciences of Taiwan, as well as the first Taiwanese to hold a Ph.D. degree. He became the first Taiwanese professor in Japan's pre-1945 imperial university system, at Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University). His pharmacology research lab was the cradle of medical research in Taiwan.

In 1954, Tu founded Kaohsiung Medical College (now Kaohsiung Medical University) and became the first president of the College (1954-1966).