Famous people who grew up or lived in China
11 notable people grew up or lived in China. Each listing explores the home and neighbourhood, and how the place shaped the person they became.
Confucius
📍 Kong Miao (Temple of Confucius), Qufu, Shandong 273100, China
I was born Kong Qiu on the 28th of September 551 BC in the state of Lu — now Qufu in Shandong province, China. My father died when I was three and my mother raised me in modest…
Deng Xiaoping1904–1997
📍 Guang'an, Sichuan, China
I was born Deng Xiaoping on the 22nd of August 1904 in Guang'an, a county in Sichuan province in southwestern China. I went to France as a work-study student at sixteen, became a communist…
Jack Ma1964–1999
📍 Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Jack Ma grew up in Hangzhou, the old capital of the Southern Song dynasty on West Lake, and as a boy he practised his English by guiding foreign tourists around the city for free. He has…
Laozi
📍 Luyi, Henan, China
I was born Li Er — known to the world as Laozi, meaning Old Master — in the state of Chu in what is now Henan province, China, traditionally dated to around 601 BC though my historicity is…
Li Na1982–2002
📍 Wuhan, Hubei, China
Li Na was born in Wuhan, the great industrial city on the Yangtze River in central China, in February 1982. Her father, Li Shengpeng, had been a professional badminton player whose career…
Mao Zedong1893–1913
📍 Shaoshan Village, Shaoshan, Xiangtan, Hunan 411300, China
I was born in 1893 in Shaoshan, a village in Hunan province in central China, the son of a peasant farmer who had made himself prosperous through frugality and hard work. Shaoshan was a…
Marco Polo1275–1292
📍 Kublai Khan Palace, Beijing, China
I spent seventeen years in the service of Kublai Khan, and for much of that time I lived within his great palace in Khanbaliq — the city we now call Beijing. Nothing I had seen in Venice or…
Michael Hutchence1964–1972
📍 Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
From the age of four I grew up in Hong Kong, where my father had gone into business — a swirl of neon, harbour ferries, markets and noise utterly unlike anywhere in Australia. For a small…
Wu Zetian624–705
📍 Tang Dynasty Imperial Palace, Xian, China
I entered the imperial palace at Chang'an as a concubine of Emperor Taizong when I was fourteen years old, and I left it sixty years later as the only woman in Chinese history to rule as…
Yongle Emperor1420–1424
📍 4 Jingshan Front St, Dongcheng, Beijing 100009, China
From the Meridian Gate's uppermost tower, the empire stretched in every direction — six hundred rooms, a thousand courtyards, all arranged to reflect the order of heaven. I chose these…
Zhou Enlai1898–1976
📍 Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China
I was born Zhou Enlai on the 5th of March 1898 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, into a declining gentry family. I studied in Japan and France, became a communist organiser in Paris, survived…