📍Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
1962 – 1977“Michelle Yeoh was born in Ipoh, the capital of Perak in Malaysia, in August 1962, and grew up in this handsome old tin-mining town of colonial shophouses and limestone hills, famous for its food. Her father, Yeoh Kian-teik, was a lawyer and politician who served as a senator, and her mother, Janet, a homemaker. The family was Hokkien Chinese, and she grew up speaking English and Malay, and later learned Cantonese for her films. She was an active, sporty girl who swam, played squash and dived, and from the age of four she studied ballet, which she loved above everything. She went to the Main Convent school in Ipoh. At fifteen she moved to Britain with her parents' support to attend boarding school, and then studied at the Royal Academy of Dance in London, hoping to become a ballerina. A spinal injury ended that dream, and she switched to choreography and the arts, graduating in 1982 with a degree in creative arts. Back in Malaysia, her mother entered her in the Miss Malaysia pageant, which she won in 1983. A television advertisement with Jackie Chan led to film roles in Hong Kong, where her dance training helped her perform her own dangerous stunts in action films, without having learned martial arts. She went on to Tomorrow Never Dies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Everything Everywhere All at Once, for which she became the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for best actress. Ipoh honours its famous daughter with pride.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today