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Zhou was born Su Pu (蘇璞), but was separated from her natural parents at a young age and raised by adoptive parents. She spent her entire life searching for her biological parents but her parentage was never established until after her death.<br/><br/> According to later family research, a relative who was an opium addict took her at the age of 3 to another city and sold her to a family named Wang, who named her Wang Xiaohong. She was later adopted by a family named Zhou, changing her name to Zhou Xiaohong.<br/><br/> At the age of 13 she took Zhou Xuan as her stage name, 'Xuan' (璇) meaning 'beautiful jade' in Chinese. Zhou started acting in 1935, but she achieved stardom in 1937 in Street Angel, when director Yuan Muzhi cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl.<br/><br/> 'Golden Voice' (金嗓子) was Zhou's nickname to commend her singing talents after a singing competition in Shanghai, where she came in second. Zhou rapidly became the most famous and marketable popular singer in the gramophone era up to her death, singing many famous tunes from her own movies. Her light but eminently musical voice captured the hearts of millions of Chinese of her time.<br/><br/> After introducing 'Shanghai Nights' (夜上海) in 1949, Zhou returned to Shanghai. She spent the next few years in and out of mental institutions owing to frequent breakdowns. Through the years, Zhou led a complicated and unhappy life marked by her failed marriages, illegitimate children, and suicide attempts. In 1957 she died in Shanghai in a mental asylum at the age of 39 during an Anti-Rightist Movement.
Zhou was born Su Pu (蘇璞), but was separated from her natural parents at a young age and raised by adoptive parents. She spent her entire life searching for her biological parents but her parentage was never established until after her death.<br/><br/> According to later family research, a relative who was an opium addict took her at the age of 3 to another city and sold her to a family named Wang, who named her Wang Xiaohong. She was later adopted by a family named Zhou, changing her name to Zhou Xiaohong.<br/><br/> At the age of 13 she took Zhou Xuan as her stage name, 'Xuan' (璇) meaning 'beautiful jade' in Chinese. Zhou started acting in 1935, but she achieved stardom in 1937 in Street Angel, when director Yuan Muzhi cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl.<br/><br/> 'Golden Voice' (金嗓子) was Zhou's nickname to commend her singing talents after a singing competition in Shanghai, where she came in second. Zhou rapidly became the most famous and marketable popular singer in the gramophone era up to her death, singing many famous tunes from her own movies. Her light but eminently musical voice captured the hearts of millions of Chinese of her time.<br/><br/> After introducing 'Shanghai Nights' (夜上海) in 1949, Zhou returned to Shanghai. She spent the next few years in and out of mental institutions owing to frequent breakdowns. Through the years, Zhou led a complicated and unhappy life marked by her failed marriages, illegitimate children, and suicide attempts. In 1957 she died in Shanghai in a mental asylum at the age of 39 during an Anti-Rightist Movement.
International attention to Shanghai grew in the 19th century due to its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze River. During the First Opium War (1839–1842), British forces temporarily held the city. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, opening Shanghai and other ports to international trade. In 1863, the British settlement, located to the south of Suzhou creek (Huangpu district), and the American settlement, to the north of Suzhou creek (Hongkou district), joined in order to form the International Settlement.<br/><br/>The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council, and maintained its own French Concession. Citizens of many countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work during the ensuing decades; those who stayed for long periods called themselves 'Shanghailanders'. In the 1920s and 30s, some 20,000 so-called White Russians and Russian Jews fled the newly established Soviet Union and took up residence in Shanghai. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners.