Harry Shum Jr. is an American actor with strong connections to both Chinese and Latin culture. Generally speaking, he is best-known to people as Mike Chang on Glee and Magnus Bane on Shadowhunters, but it is interesting to note that he has appeared in numerous movies, TV shows, and web series as well. In particular, Shum has appeared in numerous media projects related to dance in some manner because of his background.
Here are five things that you may or may not have known about Harry Shum Jr.:
He Is Trilingual
Shum speaks Spanish, Cantonese, and English, which is unsurprising because he was born to Chinese parents living in Costa Rica before moving to San Francisco in the United States when he was six-year-old. With that said, it is interesting to note that he is no longer a fluent speaker of Spanish because he is out-of-practice. As for why he speaks Cantonese rather than some other dialect of Chinese like, say, Mandarin, that is because his parents are from Guangzhou and Hong Kong, both of which are Cantonese-speaking places.
Both a Dancer and a Choreographer
People who watched Glee will know that Shum is both a dancer and a choreographer, but it is interesting to note that he has had the chance to show off those skills in other settings as well. For example, he has had roles in not one, not two, but three dance dramas. Furthermore, he has been a concert dancer for Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, and Jessica Simpson.
His Dance Background Proved Useful for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Role
Dance is dance while martial arts is martial arts, but more than a few practitioners of both have noted similarities that make it easier for the practitioner of one to learn the other. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that Shum’s background as a dancer proved useful when he was cast in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, which was important because he has never had formal training in the martial arts.
Food Daredevil
Shum has stated that he is something of a daredevil when it comes to tasting new foods, which could be connected to the sheer range of foods to which he was introduced through the various aspects of his heritage. For proof, he has pointed to the fact that he has consumed crickets. With that said, it is interesting to note that crickets are a cheap and unsustainable source of protein in a world that is running lower and lower on resources, meaning that there is a growing movement to encourage the practice in the United States. Something that is helped by how insects are not just healthier in a nutritional sense but also safer from a public health perspective because they are so dissimilar to us that their diseases can’t jump over to humans with the same ease as diseases from say, cows and pigs.
Married to Shelby Rabara
In 2013, Shum got engaged to Shelby Rabara, which led to a marriage in 2015. In brief, Rabara is an actress as well as a dancer who got her start as a Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader before making a transition to acting on both the movie and the TV screen. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that she is actually the person who provides the vocals for the character Peridot on Steven Universe, meaning that she is a voice actress as well.
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