JAY CHOU INFORMATION
http://www.jay-chou.net/biography.php


DOB: January 18, 1979
Birthplace: Taiwan
Hometown: Linkou
Family: Mom & Dad (divorced)
Pets: dog (lives with his grandma)
Musical Instruments: Piano, Cello, Guitar, Drums
Height: 173cm (about 5'7")
Weight: 60kg (132lbs)
Bloodtype: O
Education: Taipei Tan Jiang High School, graduated 1997
Clothing Style: Hooded sweatshirts, ball caps, cool jeans, sleeveless
tees,
Musical Style: R&B, Rap, Ballad, Rock, Pop
Recording Company: Alfa Music
Person Jay owes most for his career: Former manager: Jacky Wu
Favorite Sport: Basketball
Favorite Food: Mom's cooking, and Kentucky Fried Chicken
First Released Single: He Sei You Mo (Black Humor)
Relationship status: Rumored to have dated Jolin Tsai for a while
(never confirmed)
Jay is currently dating news anchor Patty Hou. He confirmed the
relationship Feb. 18, 2005. Rumors surfaced in mid 2006 of Chou-Hou
relationship on the rocks, and Jay dating various other celebs
including Hebe Tian of S.H.E.
Jay Chou Biography [Last Updated: August 26, 2006]
by: stitchphil


Early Years
Jay Chou (Zhou Jie Lun) was born in Taiwan on January 18, 1979. At
the tender age of three, he started to learn piano under constant
supervision from his mom, Jay practiced piano diligently and
eventually developed a love for the instrument and music. He went on
to master a number of other instruments, including guitar, cello,
jazz drum as well as the Chinese Dizi.

Jay's parents divorced when he was 13. Already a quiet boy to begin
with, Jay grew even more secluded. He became independent rather
quickly and was absorbed in his own music world. Whenever any musical
ideas came to mind, he would jot them down. It wasn't before long he
started writing his own songs.

Basketball was his other love and he often played with friends. In
terms of school, Jay was not very strong academically, but he did
manage to complete high school.



Road to Fame
By an interesting twist of fate, a schoolmate of Jay's signed up for
a singing contest and wanted him to accompany her on the piano. The
performance at the contest was by no means stunning, but somehow the
host of the show, Jacky Wu, took notice of the musical score that Jay
was playing from. And from then on, in the momentous year of 1998,
the little boy who grew up in Linkou entered the entertainment
industry primarily as a songwriter. Jay spent hours and hours on end
in the studio, dreaming up melodies, and it soon became his second
home. That was how he spent his first years in the industry. The
songs he wrote for other artists were rejected fairly often at that
time. After all, who was Jay Chou? No one really knew much about him.
But over time, his songs were accepted and they paved the way for
Jay's eventual successful musical career.

After working behind-the-scenes for some time, Jacky Wu was impressed
with what Jay has to offer not only as a songwriter, but as a singer
as well. And so, on November 1, 2000, he made his debut with the self-
titled album Jay . His soulful voice and infectious tunes were well-
received by listeners and "Jay Chou" soon became a household name.
His unique musical style garnered him attention from fans and critics
alike.



Music Career - The First Three Albums
Released on September 20, 2001, Jay's second musical effort Fantasy
propelled him to stardom with numerous hits such as "Kai Bu Liao
Kou", "An Jing", and "Shuang Jie Gun", just to name a few. He earned
many awards with this album, including five Golden Melody Awards .
This was an astonishing feat by an artist who has just arrived on the
scene for a short period of time. After the successes of his first
two albums, Jay launched his first music concert series, known as the
Fantasy Tour, showcasing his piano and cello skills in this concert,
which was kept mainly within Asia .

After his first concert series, Jay released Eight Dimensions again
wowing everyone with his sheer musical talent. After this album Jay
went into his second tour again, this time known as The One concert
tour, and this time, at a much larger scale as compared to the
Fantasy tour. In The One concert, we have seen Jay grown as a live
performer with his live singing skills, and even a few dance steps to
make the entire concert successful.

In summer of 2003, Jay released his fourth studio album Ye Hui Mei ,
named after his mother, which show how much Jay treasures his mother.
From that point onwards, it was clear that Jay had the plan of
releasing one album annually. Jay fine-tunes each song to perfection
and never fails to surprise and capture his audience with his
innovative musical ideas. The growth from one album to the next has
been evident to those who have traversed this journey of music with
Jay.

His own unique Chinese R&B style is unparalleled by another and he
continues to make breakthroughs as he takes risks in attempting new
things. The way he intertwines Chinese and Western music makes his
songs endearing to people both young and old. The fusion of the two
cultures is not only fresh-sounding, but has also rarely been done by
other musicians before. Together with his long time friend and
lyricist Vincent Fang, Jay's compositions and Vincent's lyrics
managed to reflect Jay's sensitivity to human emotions and the
details of life. He manages to touch people's hearts with striking
words as well as educate people's minds with important lessons.



Branching Off onto the Big Screen
After being in the entertainment industry for several years, Jay has
started to branch off from music a bit and ventured into the realm of
acting. An interesting thing to note is that a lot of his musical
inspiration simply emerges from watching movies. You may have often
found that his music gives very vibrant visual imagery and his music
videos bring those images to life. It should come as no surprise that
besides being a singer-songwriter, he has also dreamt of being a film
director one day. In the movie "Hidden Track" (2003), Jay guest-
starred as himself briefly and got a taste of what it is like to be
part of a film. He also specially penned 2 songs for the movie
released in the Hidden Track EP.


Back to His Roots
In summer 2004, Jay's much anticipated album Qi Li Xiang was
released . Once again, he managed to turned heads of both the critics
and fans. The production quality has been taken up a notch and his
musical style has also matured significantly. Hence, it is not
surprising that Jay has garnered more awards under his belt with this
album. Jay also made it clear that he will continue to have at least
one song on all his album with the Oriental style. With that album,
Jay launched his next concert series known as the Incomparable to Jay
concert series in that same year, which took Asia by storm, and even
went as far as the United States in Los Angeles . The concert DVD and
CD for his Taiwan Incomparable concert was released in early 2005.


The Big Breakthrough Role
Jay's first major movie role came in "Initial D" (2005) when he
starred in the film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, the same duo
that directed the Infernal Affairs trilogy. In the movie, Jay acts as
the child prodigy, Takumi Fujiwara, a high school student in Japan
with a tattered childhood. He plays along side other movie A-listers
such as Anthony Wong, Edison Chen and Shawn Yue. Jay also composed
two songs for the movie. The film has won numerous awards in Hong
Kong, and more importantly, Jay won the award for Best Newcomer for
his role in the movie during the 42nd Golden Horse Awards and also
during the 25 th Hong Kong Film Awards . Jay was visibly delighted
during the Golden Horse Awards when he accepted his award, in which
he said in his acceptance speech, "I never thought that what I've not
won in the Golden Melody Awards, I've got it back here" making
reference to the Golden Melody Awards, which has been shutting him
out from the Best Male Singer category year after year.

The movie has kept Jay very busy in most of the year, due to all the
filming and promotional works for the movie. The movie also allowed
Jay to break into the Japanese market, when he subsequently released
his first compilation album called Initial J in Japan only, with the
theme songs of the Initial D movie included in that album.



The Beat Goes On
With Jay so busy with the movie, it is understandable that his album
for 2005 was delayed by a few months, and was only released in
November of 2005. The album was titled November's Chopin . The album
was named it as such because of all the songs Jay used to practice on
the piano when he was a child, it was Chopin's compositions left a
deep-lasting impression on him. Also in this album, Jay openly made
his disgust of the paparazzi known by personally writing and
composing a song to `attack' the paparazzi by calling them dogs, the
song is titled Si Mian Chu Ge, or "Besieged from All Sides".

Jay also made another landmark in his 6th album by directing his own
music videos for some of the MVs of this album. At the same time, Jay
began directing Music Videos for other artistes as well, most
notably, Taiwanese group S.H.E.



Working with His Idol & Yet Another Screen Debut
In early 2006, Jay managed to work with his long time idol, Jet Li by
composing the theme song and directing the MV for the movie, titled
Fearless , the same title of the movie. This song was released in the
Fearless EP , together with the music videos of all the songs off the
November's Chopin album. Jay managed to get his next major movie role
as the year went on. This time in a movie directed by the
internationally acclaimed director Zhang Yimou, in the film "The City
of Golden Armour " (the official English title of the movie has not
been announced). Jay received lots of praises from his co-stars Chow
Yun Fat and Gong Li, as well as praises from Zhang Yimou himself. All
of them were amazed with Jay's acting skills and his determination
and drive when he works on the set. The movie is set to be released
Christmas 2006, or early next year. Again, Jay composed the movie's
ending theme song for the film.


Still Jay, Still Fantasy
With Jay being so busy pursuing acting, directing, and various
endorsements, many fans worry that Jay may have given up on music.
But Jay assured his fans that music will always be his first love and
he had no intentions of letting it go. With that said, it has been
confirmed that Jay will be the leading actor in the film "Slam Dunk"
where Jay plays the role of a leading basketball star. The film is
set to be released in March 2007. Fans hope he won't over exert
himself in his many endeavors.

His 7th album will be released on 8th September 2006, titled Still
Fantasy , a throwback to his second album. As to what to expect from
this album, fans can only wait eagerly in anticipation as all
information relating to the album are kept tightly under wraps, but
Jay will definitely not disappoint!