Jang Na-ra

Jang Na-ra (Korean: 장나라, born March 18, 1981) is a South Korean singer and actress. She also sings in Chinese, and is known in China by her transliterated Chinese name (simplified Chinese: 张娜拉; traditional Chinese: 張娜拉; pinyin: Zhāng Nàlā).^[2]

Early life

As a child, Jang spent most of her childhood in her birthplace, Seoul, but appeared with her father in a play, Les Misérables, in her primary school days, thus sparking her interest to become an actress. Jang also went on to become an advertisement model for some television advertisements in her high school days before entering into the Department of Theater, the Faculty of Fine Arts at Chungang University in March 2000.

Music career

Jang moved into a singing career by signing a contract with SM Entertainment, however SM Entertainment had dropped Jang due to assumptions that Jang would have lesser or no popularity than other competing artists. Despite SM's opinion, Jang released her debut album First Story with the title track "Burying My Face In Tears". The album sold 300,000 copies in the process. Her pop ballad style song, Confession and the April Story, was ranked at the top in various music charts. Thus, this resulted in Jang holding an MC job at MBC's music show, Music Camp. Jang was also the MC of talk show Love Story.

Acting career

Jang also has a successful acting career, in which she appears in a TV sitcom New Nonstop with young and famousSouth Korean stars such as Park Kyung-lim and Yang Dong-geun. Together with Jang Hyuk, she also played the leading role in a TV drama, Successful Story of a Bright Girl, which recorded high audience rating. ^{[citation needed]}

In recent years, she starred in a drama in China, called Bratty Princess. Being the lead actress, she has attracted much affection from Chinese-speaking fans and has become quite popular in Chinese-speaking countries in Asia. She has also released a few Chinese-language CDs. Her first Chinese album was a huge success and it featured her previously released Korean songs translated into Chinese. The Chinese versions of "Sweet Dream", "It's Probably Love" and "I'm A Woman Too" have become very popular on radio throughout Asia. She has performed many concerts in China, often singing both Korean and Chinese songs. Recently she released another Chinese album called "Kung Fu". The video for the song featured her in red qipao (Chinese women traditional dress), fighting villains, and dancing with a cute panda. She is also in the 2008 Olympic song "Beijing Welcomes You", as the only non-Chinese ethnic singer.

In the middle of this year Jang Nara decided to ended her 6 year of hiatus by taking a leading role as Lee Seo Young who is 34 year old mistaken for being 25 in a rom-com Baby Faced Beauty. This on-going drama also a mark for her to start her come back status in K-Drama world. She is a relative of Bang Min-ah, from the Girl's Day girl group of Dream Tea Entertainment.

Jang reunited her co-star Daniel Choi for School 2013^[3][4][5]

Filmography

Drama

Charity and other activities

Jang does some charity work such as sending free powdered milk to the hungry North Korean children. She also works with the FHI Charity organization.

Recently, Jang held a fund-raising concert for child patients of leukemia in China. The Jang Foundation was established from the money raised during Jang's fan club meeting at her June 9 concert in Beijing, which was held to mark the 15th year of Korean-Chinese diplomatic relations. Twelve hundred seats at the concert venue sold out early. After the concert on stage, a leading Chinese charity organization appointed Jang as a goodwill ambassador, making her the first foreigner to receive such an honor.^[6]

In June 2010, Jang was appointed as an associate professor at the Beijing Huajia University (北京华嘉学院).^[7]

In 2011, Jang was appointed as Seoul’s Gangnam-gu’s ambassador to promote tourism in the area.

Discography

Albums

Others

Awards

• 2001 MBC Best MC Award
• 2003 Singer of the Year (Korea) CCTV-MTV Music Honors
• 2002 KBS Music Awards
• 2002 SBS 10 Best Star
• 2002 KMTV Music Award
• 2002 MBC Golden Disk Award

• 2002 MBC Singer Award
• 15th International Chunsa Film Festival: Hallyu Grand Award
• 2010 Asia Star Award
• 2012 KBS Drama Awards: Excellence Award for Mini Series, Actress (School 2013)
• 2011 KBS Drama Awards: Excellence Award for Mini Series, Actress (Baby-faced Beauty)
• 15th Chunsa Film Festival: Hallyu Star Award

• 2011 KBS Drama Award Best Actress of Mini Series

2005 Asia's Best Woman Singer, 2004~2005 Asia-Pacific Music Chart Award

• Today's Young Artist Award (2008)
• Most Popular Singer, China Golden Disk Music Awards (2005)
• Best New Actress, Baesang Arts Awards (2003)

References

1. ↑ The explanation for Jang Nara's name by her father, from Jang Nara's official website. (in Korean)
2. ↑ http://www.tenasia.com/archives/74256
3. ↑ http://mwave.interest.me/enewsworld/en/article/26347
4. ↑ Jeon, Ji-young (30 November 2012). "Jang Nara's Cute Wish for School 2013's Success". KBS Global. Retrieved 2012-12-07. 
5. ↑ Hong, Grace Danbi (8 November 2012). "Jang Nara Flawlessly Pulls Off a School Uniform". enewsWorld. Retrieved 2012-12-07. 
6. ↑ "Jang Nara Named Ambassador of Chinese Charity". KBS GLOBAL. 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-06-30. 
7. ↑ Jo, Sang-won (2010-07-02), "10년만에 대학 졸업한 장나라, 중국에서 교수됐다 [Jang Nara, only ten years out of university, becomes professor in China]", Gyeongwon Ilbo, retrieved 2010-07-04 
8. ↑ :: 한국음반산업협회 ::
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 :: 한국음반산업협회 ::
10. ↑ :: 한국음반산업협회 ::
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 2004년 총결산 국내음반 판매량집계

External links

• Official Website
• Jang Nara at the Internet Movie Database
• Official English Website
• Official Taiwan Website
• Official Chinese Blog
• Official Chinese MicroBlog