Fish Leong

Fish Leong is a Malaysian singer and actress whose voice has carried Mandopop ballads across the Chinese-speaking world for close to three decades. Born Leong Chui Peng, she built her career from a base in Taiwan and became one of the defining interpreters of romantic, melancholic material, with a catalog that doubles as a karaoke canon.

Her signature songs include "Yong Qi" (Courage), "Fen Shou Kuai Le," "Ning Xia," "Silk," "Chong Bai" (Worship), and the 2005 ballad "Ke Xi Bu Shi Ni" (Unfortunately Not You). That last title became international news in January 2026 when Chinese platforms reportedly banned it, prompting a mass-streaming protest rather than the silence the move was meant to produce. She has kept a low public profile since closing her social media accounts in August 2024, letting the music and the headlines do the talking.

Her reach spans China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Chinese-speaking communities elsewhere, and her Wikipedia catalog exists in at least 12 languages. [edit]

Leong Chui Peng was born on June 16, 1978, in Bahau, a small town in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, into a Malaysian Chinese family. Bahau sits in a largely agricultural district, a long way from the entertainment capitals where her career would eventually play out, and her early life there gave her the small-town grounding that Mandopop stars of her generation often drew on in interviews. Her birth sign is Gemini.

Like many Mandopop singers of her era, she did not build her career from Malaysia. She moved to Taiwan in the late 1990s to launch her recording career, following the established route for Chinese-language artists who wanted access to the region's biggest labels, producers, and television platforms. Taiwan in that period was the commercial center of Mandopop, and establishing a presence there was close to a prerequisite for anyone hoping to reach audiences across China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia.

She adopted the English stage name Fish, an unusual choice for an artist whose entire catalog is in Mandarin, and she is also known by the alias Jasmine Leong. Her given name is sometimes rendered in English-language sources as Lian Jingru, though the established form is Leong Chui Peng, and her Chinese name is 梁靜茹, rendered in pinyin as Liáng Jìngrú.

The years before her breakthrough are thinly documented in the public record. What is clear is that she arrived in Taiwan as an unknown Malaysian singer with no local fanbase, and that the transition from that position to a major-label recording artist happened in the late 1990s, setting up the run of hits that followed. [edit]

Her recording career began in the late 1990s after she relocated to Taiwan, and it has been defined less by reinvention than by consistency. Over roughly three decades she has sold more than 20 million records, a figure that places her among the most commercially successful Mandopop artists of her generation.

The hits arrived steadily. "Yong Qi" (Courage) and "Fen Shou Kuai Le" became the songs that made her a household name in Chinese-speaking markets, and "Ning Xia," "Silk," and "Chong Bai" (Worship) extended the run. In 2005 she released "Ke Xi Bu Shi Ni" (Unfortunately Not You), a breakup ballad that became one of her signature songs and, eventually, one of the most politically charged titles in her catalog.

Her profile crossed into unusual territory in October 2013, when Chinese President Xi Jinping referenced her by name during a speech in Kuala Lumpur, remarking on her popularity in China. A head of state invoking a foreign pop singer is rare enough that the moment was reported internationally.

Live performance has remained central. She drew a large crowd for a Beijing performance in September 2012, and in September 2023 she lost her voice mid-concert in China, an incident that sparked public debate over whether ticketholders should receive refunds. She mounted a world tour in 2024. In August 2024 she closed all of her social media accounts, shifting her public presence away from direct engagement and toward her music and press coverage.

January 2026 brought the most consequential chapter of her late career, when reports emerged that "Ke Xi Bu Shi Ni" had been banned on Chinese streaming platforms. The ban, covered by CNA Lifestyle, The Star, and the Daily Express, was attributed to the title's "Ke Xi" sounding like the surname of Xi Jinping, and was reportedly tied to the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. It was not the first time the song had run into censorship: it was removed from a Chinese platform in July 2022 after the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In March 2026, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council addressed why songs may be banned in China, in direct response to the episode. In June 2026, Malaysian singer Jaclyn Victor performed a Mandarin rendition of "Chong Bai" on the competition show Singer 2026, introducing the catalog to a new audience. [edit]

Leong's public image is that of the emotionally precise Mandopop balladeer: a singer whose strength is a distinctive voice applied to romantic, melancholic material, delivered without theatrics. Her catalog doubles as a karaoke canon, and songs like "Yong Qi" and "Fen Shou Kuai Le" are inseparable from the image of a generation singing along at the top of its lungs.

Media coverage tends to emphasize her cross-cultural reach, the fact that a Malaysian singer became a fixture of the Taiwan-centered Chinese-language industry, and the political oddity of her catalog intersecting with censorship. Since August 2024 she has withdrawn from direct social media engagement, which has given her a more elusive, music-first presence: she appears through releases, tours, and headlines rather than through daily posts. [edit]

Fish Leong's fame is concentrated in the Chinese-speaking world, and it is deep rather than broad. Her search interest clusters heavily in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, and she is currently the 21st most famous person from Malaysia in the iFANN Global Fame Rankings, a position she held steady from the previous cycle. That regional intensity is the shape of her career: enormous in Mandopop's home markets, more modest outside them.

iFANN's Global Fame Engine has evaluated her, but she does not currently hold a placement in the published rankings, whether the Global Top 1,000 or a Top-100 scope list, as of the September 2026 cycle. The rankings measure worldwide attention across public signals such as Wikipedia readership and global search interest, and her footprint outside Asia remains limited, which is why a singer with 20 million records sold sits outside the current published placements.

Her fanbase has no formal name, and the sources are explicit on that point. What it does have is organization: the "Fish Leong Information Station" functions as a hub for tour updates and fan engagement, and the community turns out for world tours and streams her catalog steadily on platforms like Spotify.

The community's most striking collective act came in January 2026, when reports of the Chinese ban on "Unfortunately Not You" triggered a mass-streaming campaign. Fans and casual listeners pushed the 2005 ballad up the charts as an act of digital defiance, and the story ran in the Taipei Times, The Straits Times, and outlets well beyond the usual Mandopop press. No birthday billboards, subway ads, or fan-funded charity drives are documented, and none should be assumed. [edit]

Her stage name is a straightforward English word grafted onto a wholly Mandarin-language career, and she is also known as Jasmine Leong. Her birth name is sometimes rendered as Lian Jingru in English-language sources, though Leong Chui Peng is the established form.

"Ke Xi Bu Shi Ni" has now been swept up in two separate censorship episodes: once after Shinzo Abe's death in 2022, and again in 2026 amid the fallout from the Maduro capture. Fans treat the pattern as part of the song's lore.

She is one of the few Malaysian artists to achieve sustained dominance in the Taiwan-centered Mandopop industry, and her Wikipedia catalog spans at least 12 language editions. The Chinese edition vastly outpaces the English one, drawing 11,158 views over 30 days against 2,039 for English.

A story fans still retell: during a 2013 speech in Kuala Lumpur, Xi Jinping brought up Leong by name to illustrate her popularity in China, a moment almost without parallel for a pop singer from outside the mainland.

No awards list, hall of fame induction, honorary degree, or magazine cover for Leong is documented in the available record, and none should be assumed. [edit]

Leong grew up in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan, in a Malaysian Chinese household, and she has generally kept her family out of the public eye. She was married to Tony Zhao, a Taiwanese wine merchant, and the couple had a son. Reports of a separation circulated in the late 2010s, though the available sources do not confirm a finalized divorce, custody arrangements, or the exact dates involved.

She has maintained a deliberately private personal life, and little about her household or day-to-day family arrangements is a matter of documented public record. [edit]

Her catalog is tied to the Taiwan-centered Mandopop industry of the late 1990s and 2000s. Chinese President Xi Jinping referenced her publicly in 2013. Malaysian singer Jaclyn Victor covered "Chong Bai" on Singer 2026 in June 2026. Tony Zhao, a Taiwanese wine merchant, is her reported spouse. [edit]

Fish Leong's public romantic history is only partly documented. The relationship that is widely known is her marriage to Tony Zhao, a Taiwanese wine merchant. The couple had a son together, and reports of a separation and divorce circulated in the late 2010s, though the sources available for this page do not confirm the exact dates, the divorce filing, or custody arrangements.

Beyond that marriage, no other public relationship is documented in the available record. There are no confirmed reports of her dating, becoming engaged, or remarrying as of 2026, and she has kept a low public profile outside the censorship controversy surrounding her catalog, so her personal life is not currently a matter of documented public record in this dataset.

As of 2026, her relationship status is best described as unconfirmed. She should not be described as single, divorced, or remarried on the basis of the sources reviewed here. [edit]

No net-worth aggregator returned a figure for Fish Leong in the source material gathered for this page, so the number below rests on iFANN's own editorial analysis of her career earnings rather than on a published estimate. The iFANN Editorial Team puts her fortune at approximately $30 million in 2026, built from three decades of catalog sales, touring, and royalties.

The foundation is recorded music. More than 20 million records sold across her career generates a durable royalty stream, and in the Chinese-speaking market those royalties are unusually long-lived because her hits function as permanent karaoke and wedding-reception standards. Streaming adds a steady layer on top: roughly 1.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and about 2.77 million monthly audience on YouTube Music, alongside some 146,000 YouTube subscribers and roughly 298.4 million total views on that platform.

Touring is the other major engine. A world tour in 2024, following years of arena and theater dates across China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, represents the largest single income category in a typical year for an artist at her level. Live performance in the mainland market in particular commands high ticket prices and large venues, and her draw there has been demonstrated repeatedly, including the Beijing performance in September 2012.

Her earnings profile has one notable complication. The January 2026 ban on "Unfortunately Not You" removed a signature song from Chinese streaming platforms, which cuts into royalties for that title specifically, even as the resulting mass-streaming protest pushed it up charts elsewhere. She also closed her social media accounts in August 2024, which reduces direct monetization through sponsored posts but does not touch the core music and touring revenue. She has no documented major endorsements, real estate holdings, or business ventures in the available record. [edit]