Siqin Gaowa

Siqin Gaowa (Mongolian Cyrillic Цэцэнгуа, born 19 January 1950), born Duan Anlin, is a Chinese-born Swiss actress.

She was born in Guangzhou to a Han Chinese father and a Mongol Chinese mother.

Her father died when she was 4, she was raised by her mother in Inner Mongolia.

Siqin Gaowa was born Duan Anlin in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, on 20 January 1950.

Her mother was a Mongolian woman, while her father was a Han Chinese army officer originally from the Shǎnxī Province, who was stationed in Guangzhou at the time of her birth.

Her father died of an illness when Siqin Gaowa was four years old, and her mother subsequently moved back to Inner Mongolia with her.

She grew up in Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia.

She had a rough childhood in Inner Mongolia, where "life was hard, and material comforts rare".

As a child, Siqin Gaowa showed a talent for dancing.

When she was thirteen she was the choreographer and performer of her version of "Wine cup dance" (Zhongwan wu).

The movie was also selected as Hong Kong's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 57th Academy Awards.

In the mid 1960s she was selected to join as a dancer the singing and dance troupe of Huhhot.

With the Huhhot troupe she performed at music and dance programs of minority groups in Beijing.

Sometime before the Cultural Revolution, however, she injured her foot, and had to give up her career as a dancer.

She then decided to switch to acting.

Her stage name, Siqin Gaowa, means "beauty and wisdom" in Mongolian.

One of her first leading roles was in the movie Anxious to Return (1979) or Eagerly Homebound (Guixin sijian).

Siqin Gaowa became initially known for her performance in this movie.

In the movie, she portrays the widow Yu Zhen, an honest peasant woman, who during the Sino-Japanese War saves and falls in love with a wounded soldier who is "trying to grapple with his conflicting emotions."

For her portrayal in this movie, Siqin Gaowa won the Ministry of Culture's Youth Creativity Award in 1979.

Siqin Gaowa made her debut in the 1981 film Anxious to Return, in which she plays Yuzhen, a woman that during the Sino-Japanese War saves a wounded soldier, and falls in love with him.

She was awarded the Ministry of Culture's Youth Creativity Award for her performance.

Her portrayal of Yu Zhen was followed by supporting roles in the movies Xu Mao and his Daughters (1981) (Chinese: Xu Mao he tade nǚ'ermen ) and Dragons and Snakes of the Big Lake (1982) (Chinese: Daze long she ).

She achieved fame and garnered wide acclaim for her performance in the 1982 film Rickshaw Boy, an adaptation of Lao She's novel of the same title, in which she portrayed "Tigress", the love interest of Zhang Fengyi's character "Xiangzi".

She won the Golden Rooster Award and Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress that year.

She achieved fame and wide acclaim with her portrayal of Hunui in Rickshaw Boy (1982), literally translated, Camel Xiangzi (Chinese: Luotuo xiangzi).

The film is based on Lao She's novel of the same name.

For her interpretation of Hanui in Rickshaw boy, Siqin Gaowa was awarded the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress in 1983.

In 1984 she was acclaimed for her portrayal of Azhen in the award-winning Homecoming (1984), literally translated, Time and Tide (Chinese: Sishui liunian).

The film "tells the story of the journey of a woman, Shan Shan (Koo Mei-wah) from Hong Kong to her hometown in China to visit her childhood friends, Ah Chun (Siqin Gaowa), and Hao-chong (Tse Wai-hung)."

For her performance in Homecoming she was awarded the 1985 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress.

She has been married to musician Chen Liangsheng (陈亮声) since 1986 and currently holds Swiss citizenship together with her husband.

In 1989, Siqin Gaowa starred in Full Moon in New York (1989), where she acted again alongside Koo.

The movie tells about three Chinese women who immigrated to New York City from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, with Siquin Gaowa playing Zhao Hong from the mainland.

At one point in the move the women carouse, and each one sings Chinese songs that are popular in her culture.

The three immigrant women find themselves in New York without a physical home nor a homeland, they "each live and enact personal dramas of loss and displacement," but are finally depicted as happily together in the last scene.

In 1995, she was a member of the jury at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival.

Some of her most notable appearances in other movies include Kangxi Dynasty and Full Moon in New York.

She won the award for Best Actress at the 4th Hong Kong Film Awards for Homecoming, becoming the first Mainland Chinese actress to win the honour.

In 2008, she won her second Best Actress in the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards for her role in The Postmodern Life of My Aunt.