Harbin

Tong Jian is a Chinese pair skater. With partner Pang Qing, he is the 2010 Olympic silver medalist, 2006 & 2010 World Champion, a five-time Four... Continents champion and the 2008 Grand Prix Final Champion. They are the world record holders for pairs' score in the free skating under the ISU Judging System. Tong was born in Harbin, China, the home of Chinese pair skating. He began skating at age six. He originally competed as a single skater. He then competed as an ice dancer for two years because of his weak jumps. After his short ice dancing career, Tong switched to pairs. He previously competed with Zhang Yue. In 1993, coach Yao Bin teamed him up with Qing and they have been skating together ever since. When Yao moved to Beijing, Pang and Tong trained without a coach until 1997, when they began training under Yao again. Pang and Tong did not have a strong junior career, perhaps due to the fact that the Junior Grand Prix did not exist when they were skating at the junior level. They placed 14th, 9th, and 8th at the World Junior Championships between 1997 and 1999.
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Pang Qing is a Chinese pair skater. With partner Tong Jian, she is the 2010 Olympic silver medalist, the 2006 and 2010 World Champion, a five-time... Four Continents champion and the 2008 Grand Prix Final Champion. Pang was born in Harbin, the home of Chinese pair skating. She began skating at age six. She originally competed as a single skater. In 1993, coach Yao Bin teamed her up with Tong and they have been skating together ever since. When Yao moved to Beijing, Pang and Tong trained without a coach until 1997, when they began training under Yao again. Pang and Tong did not have a strong junior career, perhaps due to the fact that the Junior Grand Prix did not exist when they were skating at the junior level. They placed 14th, 9th, and 8th at the World Junior Championships between 1997 and 1999. After that, they went senior. Pang and Tong won the silver medal at the 1997 Chinese national championships, but did not represent China at the World Championships until 1999. They are the 2000 Chinese national champions.
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Sun Honglei, born 16 August 1970 in Harbin, China is a Chinese actor. Sun developed an interest in acting and performances at a young age. He often... skipped school to learn breakdancing on the streets and eventually gave up his studies entirely to pursue dancing as a career, eventually performing with a modern dance troupe for several years. Later, Sun became a popular local nightclub singer and host before going into acting. In 1995, Sun attended the Central Academy of Drama, where he graduated in 1997. He has since gone on to star in numerous TV dramas and films, winning many awards for his stage work. Sun is probably best known to Asian cinema fans for his supporting performances in Seven Swords, Triangle and Blood Brothers. Since October 2011, Sun has played the starring role in the popular Chinese series 'Nanren Bang' , portraying urban romantic life from a male perspective.
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Benjamin Lees was a contemporary U.S. composer of Art music, born in Harbin, China, raised in San Francisco and lived in Palm Springs, California.... Benjamin is of Russian descent. Lees began piano lessons at 5 with K. I. Rodetsky and started composing as a teenager. After serving in the United States military, Lees studied composition under Halsey Stevens, as well as with Kalitz and Dahl, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. Composer George Antheil, impressed by Lees' compositions, offered further tutelage; this period lasted four years, at the end of which Lees won a Fromm Foundation Award. In 1954 the receipt of a Guggenheim Fellowship allowed Lees to live in Europe, realizing his goal of developing his individual style away from current fashions in the American Art music scene and resulting in a number of mature and impressive works. Returning to the United States in 1961, he divided his time between composition and teaching at several institutions.
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Zhang Hao is a Chinese figure skater. With partner Zhang Dan, he is the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, 2005 & 2010 Four Continents champion, and... three time World silver medalist. Zhang Hao previously competed with Zhang Liyun. He teamed up with Zhang Dan in 1997. They are not related. They immediately had a lot of success on the junior circuit. They won two medals on the Junior Grand Prix in their first year on it and then placed 5th at the Junior Grand Prix Final. They also won the bronze medal at the 1999 Chinese national championships and the silver at the 2000 Chinese national championships. In the 2000-2001 season, they won the Junior Grand Prix Final, placed third at nationals, and then won Junior Worlds. At the 2000 Junior Worlds, they performed a quadruple twist, the first quad twist ever performed at that event. They stayed junior in the 2001-2002 season, winning the Junior Grand Prix Final yet again. They won the bronze medal at the 2002 Four Continents Championships and then went to the 2002 Olympics, where they placed 11th.
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Tong Jian is a Chinese pair skater. With partner Pang Qing, he is the 2010 Olympic silver medalist, 2006 & 2010 World Champion, a five-time Four... Continents champion and the 2008 Grand Prix Final Champion. They are the world record holders for pairs' score in the free skating under the ISU Judging System. Tong was born in Harbin, China, the home of Chinese pair skating. He began skating at age six. He originally competed as a single skater. He then competed as an ice dancer for two years because of his weak jumps. After his short ice dancing career, Tong switched to pairs. He previously competed with Zhang Yue. In 1993, coach Yao Bin teamed him up with Qing and they have been skating together ever since. When Yao moved to Beijing, Pang and Tong trained without a coach until 1997, when they began training under Yao again. Pang and Tong did not have a strong junior career, perhaps due to the fact that the Junior Grand Prix did not exist when they were skating at the junior level. They placed 14th, 9th, and 8th at the World Junior Championships between 1997 and 1999.
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Pang Qing is a Chinese pair skater. With partner Tong Jian, she is the 2010 Olympic silver medalist, the 2006 and 2010 World Champion, a five-time... Four Continents champion and the 2008 Grand Prix Final Champion. Pang was born in Harbin, the home of Chinese pair skating. She began skating at age six. She originally competed as a single skater. In 1993, coach Yao Bin teamed her up with Tong and they have been skating together ever since. When Yao moved to Beijing, Pang and Tong trained without a coach until 1997, when they began training under Yao again. Pang and Tong did not have a strong junior career, perhaps due to the fact that the Junior Grand Prix did not exist when they were skating at the junior level. They placed 14th, 9th, and 8th at the World Junior Championships between 1997 and 1999. After that, they went senior. Pang and Tong won the silver medal at the 1997 Chinese national championships, but did not represent China at the World Championships until 1999. They are the 2000 Chinese national champions.
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Akira Takarada is a Japanese film actor who is most known in the west for his roles in the Godzilla film series. Takarada was born in Japan-occupied... Korea, and lived for a time in Harbin, China. His father worked as an engineer on the South Manchuria Railway. After the war, he remained in Harbin, and he is able to speak Mandarin Chinese and English. Takarada came to Japan with his family in 1948. He joined Toho as part of their "New Face" program in April 1953. His film debut was with a small role in And Then the Liberty Bell Rang, a biography of the educator Fukuzawa Yukichi. His big break came when he was cast as navy diver Hideto Ogata in the original Godzilla . He became a popular actor at Toho for his good looks and charismatic, sophisticated character. He continued his association with the Godzilla series in Mothra vs. Godzilla , Invasion of Astro-Monster , and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster . He returned to the series in 1992 with Godzilla vs. Mothra and appeared again in Godzilla: Final Wars .
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Li Bingbing is a Chinese actress and singer. Li had no intention of becoming an actress initially and enrolled specifically in a high school for... prospective school teachers. However, upon graduation, she discovered her interest in acting and was eventually persuaded by a friend to join the Shanghai Drama Institute in 1993. Her film debut was Zhang Yuan's Seventeen Years , which won her the "Best Actress" Award in the 1999 Singapore Film Festival. In 2001, Li starred in the television series Young Justice Bao, which propelled her to become one of the most famous actresses in China. That year she was awarded the title of one of the "Top Ten Best TV actors/actresses in China". From then on, Li was approbated as an "action actress" as she starred in a number of wuxia television dramas, such as Taiji Prodigy and Eight Heroes. In 2004, Li starred in the romantic comedy film Waiting Alone, which received three Chinese Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress. That same year, Li won the title of "The Most Popular Actress" at the 12th Beijing College Film Festival.
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