Born in Singapore to a Shanghainese mother and a Chaozhou father, Sharon Owyang graduated from Harvard University, and divides her time between freelance travel writing and film projects in the U.S. and China. She has contributed to Frommer's China and has also written about Shànghăi, China, Vietnam, and San Diego for Insight Guides, Compact Guides, the Los Angeles Times, and several websites. She speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and enough Shanghainese to be a curiosity to the locals and to lose to them every time at mahjong. More recently, she was the principal writer of the U.S.-China Media Brief produced by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
