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Wakin Chau

Wakin Chau

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Wakin Chau is a Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...

 singer and actor
Actor
An actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 popular in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...

, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...

, and Mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China , excluding Hong Kong and Macau, which are under the jurisdiction of the PRC but run on different economic and...

. He was known as Emil Chau through the 1980s and 1990s, and by 2000 he reverted to his given name Wakin. As of August 2007, he has released more than 40 albums and held several international concert tours.

Biography


Wakin Chau was born in a rice store owned by his family in Sai Ying Pun
Sai Ying Pun
Sai Ying Pun is an area in the western part of Central and Western District, on the Hong Kong Island of Hong Kong, China.In the Chinese language, Sai means "west" and Ying Pun means "camp", especially military camp...

, Hong Kong. Growing up as the fourth son in his seven-member family, Wakin learned to play the guitar when he was about 13 years old. In 1979, he left for Taipei
Taipei
Taipei is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital of the Republic of China since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated on the Danshui River, almost at the northern tip of the island, about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

 to major in mathematics at National Taiwan University
National Taiwan University
National Taiwan University is a national co-educational university located in Taipei City, Taiwan. In Taiwan, it is colloquially known as "Taida" . Its main campus is set upon 1,086,167 square meters in Taipei's Da'an District. In addition, the university has 6 other campuses in Taiwan, occupying...

. During his college years, he sang and played folk songs in local coffee shops. This activity was a tradition among NTU students, and it is how Wakin learned to sing in Mandarin, which would be key to his future as a music-maker in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...

.

Wakin had high hopes to establish a career as a recording artist, and he actively sought out contacts in the music industry. But a persistent lack of interest eventually led him to give up trying to become a performer — instead, he could sign on as an assistant producer at Rock Records
Rock Records
Rock Records is a Taiwanese record label founded in 1980 by Sam and Johnny Duan . They had their first multiseller in 1989 with Sarah Chen.It is now Asia's largest independent record label.- Artists :* Alien Huang - Xiao Gui )...

, where he wrote marketable pop songs for other artists.

Wakin was later encouraged by Chyi Yu
Chyi Yu
Chyi Yu , is a Taiwanese singer. She is also the older sister of Taiwanese singer songwriter Chyi Chin, and is best known for her 1979 hit, "The Olive Tree" .-Discography:*1979 橄欖樹*1982 祝福*1983 你是我所有的回憶...

 to sing some jingles for commercial advertising spots. One of these tunes was for a car commercial, and it happened to catch the attention of Wakin's boss at Rock, who realized it was the voice of his own assistant producer.

That moment opened the door for Wakin to record and release his first Mandarin album under the Rock Records
Rock Records
Rock Records is a Taiwanese record label founded in 1980 by Sam and Johnny Duan . They had their first multiseller in 1989 with Sarah Chen.It is now Asia's largest independent record label.- Artists :* Alien Huang - Xiao Gui )...

 label in 1987. For a man who had dreamed of performing professionally but had settled on being a record producer, this was a period of particularly good fortune that launched a succession of chart-topping records.

Shortly before his music career took off, Wakin the record producer met an American girl named Constance Woods, whose father was in Taiwan as a Fulbright scholar. Seeming to have plenty in common (including birthdays only one day apart) Wakin and Constance began to date, got engaged and then on 16 November 1986, they married in Taipei. Four months later there was another ceremony with family and friends in the United States of America on 14 March 1987. They have a son named Andrew and a daughter named Anya.

From 1985, Emil Chau — who has been using his given name Wakin since 1999 — has released more than 40 records in Mandarin
Standard Mandarin
Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, known by various names to native speakers, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....

, Cantonese and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...

. He has become a prominent name in the music of Taiwan
Music of Taiwan
Taiwan is densely-populated and culturally diverse, including a majority of ethnic Taiwanese , a powerful faction mainlanders who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek in the middle of the 20th century) and the minority of aboriginal peoples...

 and has fans of all ages not only around Asia but also in North America, Europe and elsewhere. His platinum albums such as You Make Me Happy and Sad (讓我歡喜讓我憂), The Flowery Heart (花心), Music Brings Us Together (有弦相聚), and Emil & Friends (朋友) have won awards in Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...

.

Wakin has appeared in a number of films and made guest appearances on TV and radio programs in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan. Alongside his singing career, he is a restaurateur and also is active in international charitable causes, such as kidney dialysis charities in Singapore, the January 2002 "Take a Deep Breath" concert in Taipei to raise money for local health-care organizations, Beijing's 4th Grand Charity Drive for Children in 2005, and Jackie Chan's all-star concerts in Las Vegas.

Wakin Chau is currently performing with distinguished artists Jonathan Lee 李宗盛, Zhang Zhenyue 張震嶽, and Lo Tayu 羅大佑 in the four-member "Super Band."

Mandarin albums

(Feb 1985) (Jul 1987) (Aug 1988) (Jan 1989) (Nov 1989) (Nov 1990) (Nov 1991) (Apr 1993) (Jan 1994) (Jun 1994) (Jan 1995) (Jul 1995) (Feb 1996) (Sep 1996) (Apr 1997) (Aug 1998) (Nov 1999) (Oct 2001)
  • 329 (Mar 2003) (Jul 2003) (Mar 2006)

English albums

  • Sad Without You (Sep 1988)
  • Blue Bird (Feb 1991)
  • I Remember (May 1992)
  • Songs of Birds (Aug 1993)
  • Forever Young - Best Collection (1996)
  • My Oh My (Feb 2001)
  • My Favorite Songs (May 2002)

Filmography

  • 1987 - Osmanthus Alley (桂花巷)
  • 1987 - The Game They Called Sex (黃色故事)
  • 1993 - Project S
    Project S
    Project S may refer to:* An alternate title for the movie Once a Cop* Project 'S, a new project related to the video game Snatcher...

     aka. Once a Cop
  • 1994 - Right Here Waiting (等愛的女人)
  • 1995 - Just Married (橫紋刀劈扭紋柴)
  • 1995 - I Want To Go On Living (我要活下去)
  • 1995 - Faithfully Yours (叛逆情緣)
  • 1995 - Rumble in the Bronx
    Rumble in the Bronx
    Rumble in the Bronx is a 1995 Hong Kong martial arts-action film starring Jackie Chan and the late Anita Mui. Released in the US in 1996, Rumble in the Bronx had a successful theater run, and brought Chan into the American mainstream...

     (Ice Cream Man)
  • 1996 - Who's the Woman Who's the Man (金枝玉葉2)
  • 1997 - All's Well End's Well 97
  • 1997 - Walk In (奪舍)
  • 1997 - Mr Nice Guy
    Mr. Nice Guy (1997 film)
    Mr Nice Guy is a 1997 film directed by Sammo Hung and starring Jackie Chan. It also stars Richard Norton as the villain, with whom Chan had worked in City Hunter and Chan and Hung had worked in Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars. Hung makes a cameo as an unfortunate cyclist.Mr. Nice Guy was filmed in...

    '(Ice Cream Man)
  • 1997 - 知解時空
  • 1998 - Spicy Love Soup
    Spicy Love Soup
    Spicy Love Soup is a 1997 Chinese film directed by Zhang Yang and written by Zhang, Liu Fendou, Cai Shangjun, and Diao Yi'nan based on a story by Zhang and Peter Loehr...

     (愛情麻辣燙)
  • 1999 - Gorgeous
  • 1999 - Purple Storm
    Purple Storm
    Purple Storm may refer to:*Operation Purple Storm, a series of US Military exercises in Panama in 1989*Purple Storm , a 1999 Hong Kong action film...

     (紫雨風暴)
  • 1999 - Tarzan
    Tarzan
    Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by fictional great apes, who later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

  • 2001 - Headlines (頭號人物)
  • 2003 - Homerun
    Homerun (film)
    Homerun is a 2003 Singaporean Mandarin-language film. A remake of the award-winning Iranian film Children of Heaven, Homerun is a drama about two poor siblings and their adventures over a lost pairs of shoes. The movie emphasises the importance of friends and kinship...

  • 2003 - The Pawnshop No. 8

External links