NAME: Cho Chang.
NICKNAMES: Find a nickname from Cho (that is
not Cho mama), and you will be welcome to call her it.
AGE/BIRTHDAY: Eighteen/August 24th, 1979.
HOUSE/YEAR: Ravenclaw/13th.
SOCIAL STATUS: Cho's family is pretty well off. Not so well off as the Malfoy and their kind, but well enough to be able to afford to get into Hogwarts without any financial aid, and have enough cash left over to buy a mildly new car. Most of their extra money comes from her mother's restaurant. Her father's career pays for the expensive things, like the house, cars, tuition, all of that, but the restaurant money would go into buying Cho a brand new wardrobe every year, along with enough sports gear to last a lifetime. Her family would be a little tighter when it comes to money if they were interested in all sorts of expensive, frivolous things like plastic surgery. However, all they seem to want to do is keep their restaurant chain going, and to give Cho a good education.
A-LEVELS: TBD
SPORTS:
Michaelmas Term ›› Football, Tennis.
Lent Term ›› Fencing, Lacrosse, Tennis.
Summer Term ›› Tennis, Biking, Climbing.
APPEARANCE: Cho is very fortunate looking, it has to be said. However, more people seem to notice that she's also almost obscenely adorable. Because of her adorableness, and that she's both short and skinny (due to forgetting to eat because of everything she has to do, and her sports keeping her fit), most people seem to underestimate her. Doing as much is not a brilliant idea, to say the least. Though she may look like a delicate flower, she is nothing but. She is not above breaking noses (or getting a broken nose, for that matter) on the field. Her arms are strong, and her legs, short as they may be, are toned. To mistake Cho Chang for a docile, subservient woman of the Asian stereotype is a dire mistake, especially where sports are involved.
Her smile is another notable thing about her appearance. While her face is cute, maybe even pretty, all of the time, when she smiles, her visage brightens into one of that of beauty, and she likes to think it lights up a room. Or that it at least warms the hearts of those around her. Also, Cho's hair is almost constantly in a messy state, save for when she's in class, where she puts her hair up in a ponytail. Not as terribly bushy as Hermione's, but not as sleek as it could be. No matter - it just adds to her appeal, giving her that wild animal look. Or something.
PB: Liu Yi Fei.
PERSONALITY: To call Cho Chang a complex individual would be the understatement of the year. A more apt description would be bipolar. Long-term bipolar, perhaps, but bipolar none the less. For weeks at a time, she would be a cheery girl, getting along with just about everyone, but then something would make her upset, and she'd end up crying for hours. As of late, she's been trying to keep her emotions in check, but the fact that she's an emotional wreck just rears its head every once in a while, and sometimes she needs to cry, as much as she tries not to. The fact is, Cho cries a lot, but besides crying, she lets out her feelings by cooking. Well, more when she's at home than at Hogwarts. She can't very well randomly storm into the kitchens when someone has made her angry, and cook up a Baumkuchen, can she? She can't. She's tried. The kitchen staff gets very angry when you invade their space. So, when she can't cook, she must cry, right? Wrong. Not wanting people to think she's completely mad, she can't exactly burst out in tears during class because not
only did someone insult her shoes, but she can't even share the kitchen with those... those... kitchen dictators. She used to write poetry. Angsty poetry, of course that no one will ever see. That would just ruin her for the rest of her life, wouldn't it? But I digress. That was before she discovered sports, which not only help channel her frustrations of daily life, but help to let out her pent up energy. She still has a lot left, as she's naturally very energetic. Most of that she puts into schoolwork, but sometimes she just needs to be annoying and bounce around the dorm room. When sports don't do the trick,
then she cries, long and hard until she can barely breathe. And then she gets over it, cleans herself up, and gets back to what she was doing. So is the Vicious Cycle of Cho Chang. She knows that she shouldn't be easily upset, and she generally isn't. Sometimes, though, things just get to her. Very random things, too. Telling her even the most innocent things, like that she misspelled subaqueous, or that she needs to eat (it is NOT her fault that she forgets!) will be likely to set her off. And anything about Cedric Diggory or going on a date with Harry Potter are forbidden topics, which will result in her getting angry to the point of physical violence (don't despair; although she packs a mean punch, she rarely does anything other than pinch the offenders in question) rather than crying.
When she is not being high-strung and/or violent, she can be a very fun person to be around. She's almost always cheerful, even when she's upset (she can't always show that she's hurt). Cho can also be a very good friend. She's incredibly loyal and kind. She would do just about anything to make her friends cheer up - which is odd, since she hates being consoled when upset. It's a bother. Of course, once in a while, cheering up means making people feel even worse. When someone is so upset that telling a bawdy joke doesn't cheer them up, she may resort to, of all of the horrors, oneupmanship. As in, "Your boyfriend broke up with you? That's terrible. My first love died. Tragically. On school grounds." She doesn't say it with any malicious intent, really! She just wants people to know that when it really gets bad, there's always someone who has it worse than you. Despite being emotionally touched in the head, a ball of human energy, and a little emotionally insensitive to others, she is a very decent person. And though it may not seem like it, this slightly oblivious, hyperactive, hypersensitive girl is extremely intelligent, such as is the tradition with Ravenclaws - she's just as likely to say something very dirty as she is to spew out poetry (not her own, of course) if the occasion is appropriate.
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS: Cho has been referred to as the 'little Asian chick on Speed' by those who don't know her, because... she's Asian, little, and hyperactive. She's also known for being rather rough on the field - she's had her share of penalties. She's kind of rough in most other areas of her life as well. She's sensitive, yeah? But that doesn't mean she can't fight back. She also likes rough housing, and while she likes to think that as she's gotten older, she's grown out of it, it isn't really true. The only thing she's really precise and gentle during is when she's cooking.
LIKES:
Iron Chef, cooking, foreign films, Metallica, apple juice, rabbits, mixed drinks, fairy tales.
DISLIKES: Tom Cruise, chicken stock, speaking Cantonese, sticky surfaces, dogs.
INSIDE SCOOP:
√ She is terrified of dolphins. They're such cheery little buggers, and the way they look at her... As if they want to take advantage of her. It's just not nice.
√ She has terrible luck with boys, and hopes to keep her relationship with Michael Corner going. She likes him. A lot.
√ She is lactose intolerant. She's also quite allergic to dogs.
FAMILY: David Chang ; Father, age 46. Shan Chang ; Mother, age 42.
HISTORY: Born and raised in Scotland, Cho has never had the opportunity to dig very deeply into her Chinese heritage. Example? The Changs own a restaurant. Not a Chinese one, you must understand. Rather, a Japanese one - a sushi bar that goes by the name of MacSushi. They have a branch in Spain called El Sushi, but that is entirely not the point. David Cho, whose father went to Hogwarts College before him, and his grandfather before
that, met Shan Hsu, who went to a Roman Catholic secondary school in Scotland, at a Queen concert in 1976. For David, it was the very first one he had ever been to, but for Shan, she had seen her share of plenty. Introduced through a mutual friend, Shan took it on herself to make sure the poor boy didn't have a heart attack or something like that because of culture shock. And the rest, as they say, is history. Flash forward to 1979, when the couple, married for two years, were about to have their first child. Every night Shan, the committed Catholic she was, would pray for their child to be healthy and happy. David, on the other hand, would pray that their baby would be a boy. At least, when he remembered to. When the baby was born, they named her Cho, after David's mother, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "Well, now who will go to Hogwarts?" At least, that's what Shan would say about the matter. Her husband had a different story - that he loved his daughter since the moment he was born, she was beautiful, et cetera. He really did love her, though. If not at first, she at least grew on him. It could have been the way she was easy to smile (she wasn't very emotional until about a few years after getting into Hogwarts), or that she was always interested in the most inane things, whether it be an oddly shaped rock, or the way a cloud looked. Whatever it was, both of her parents were enamored with the little girl, and spoiled her as often as they could; which turned out to be pretty often, as David was a well-paid lawyer. And Shan? Well, Shan didn't have to work. But she certainly wanted to. By the time Cho was six, her mother had started up her own restaurant. Cho's father, certain it would flounder within the first few months, frowned on this. Couldn't his wife just continue to be a home-maker? She would be so devastated when the oddly named
sushi bar, of all the places, failed.
MacSushi, however, did not fail. Shan attributed it both to praying for its success, and that it was a rather eccentric place, which sparked peoples' interest. The food was wonderful, yes, but that didn't account for much. People liked it, because it was... cute. A tiny Chinese woman running a Japanese restaurant with almost no Japanese workers? Most of them were European, with the occasional Iranis, as it would be. Despite the place's odd way of being ran, it flourished. Five years after the Sushi bar's humble beginning, a letter came for Cho, saying that she had been accepted into Hogwarts college. Oh, how David was thrilled! The tradition would be carried on. Sure, he didn't have a son to go, but Cho would do wonderfully there, wouldn't she? And she did. Until a few years into her schooling career. She had met Cedric Diggory, a very wonderful boy who she was practically in love with. She thought they might have something special. And they did. But then poor Cedric was cut down in his prime - he was off doing something heroic, probably rescuing a young student from a tree out in the forrest, when he fell and broke his neck. He was dead instantly. Of course poor Cho was crushed. Her first love, he was dead - and on school grounds, no less. What was she to do? The only thing she could do was to become rather moody. Crying all of the time, snapping at people who didn't deserve it, and being an all around bitch. This behaviour lasted well into the next year. It wasn't until she went on a date with a certain Harry Potter and ended up crying all over him that she realised something in her behaviour had to go. And so she threw herself even more into sports. She became zealous in the ones she was already involved in, and joined even more to compensate. The summer after Cedric died, she also got involved in cooking, not only working at her mother's restaurant part time, but also learning how to cook all sorts of cuisine. Now, in her last year at Hogwarts, she's hoping to balance everything that she can, so she has no time to slip up and become the emotional basket case she used to be. One can only hope she doesn't go too far.
