周華健, a.k.a. Emil Chow, is one of my favorite Mandarin singer. The release of his CD Emil and Friends coincided with the end of 8th grade for me, immediately prior to my leaving Taiwan and coming to the US; its title track 朋友 therefore carries a rather special meaning for me.

So I was listening to his songs the other day, and mom was like, "hey, isn't that Emil?" I was like, "yeah? You know him?" Mom said, "well, sort of, he kinda got famous right after you were born ... hum, funny thing, did you know he also had an American wife? Funny coincidence that you are listening to his songs."

So I went and looked it up. Apparently he is married to Constance Woods, whose father was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan at the time (also quite surprised that there is an article on him at en.wikimedia; it was not one of the places I thought to check first). Adding more to the bizarre similarities, he also studied mathematics in college. It is kinda weird how many extremely bright young men went into the music business during that era in Taiwan. 羅大佑 is another one: his father is a fairly accomplished doctor, and he is almost done with medical school before he started singing.