Name	Michelle Kwan
Height
Naionality	American
Date of Birth	July 7, 1980
Place of Birth	America,USFSA
Famous for

Born in Torrance, California, Kwan is the third child of Danny and Estella Kwan, Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. As a child, Kwan grew up speaking a mixture of Cantonese and English at home. In addition, she also speaks some conversational Mandarin. Kwan's interest in figure skating began at the age of five when she followed her two older siblings (ice hockey player Ron and figure skater Karen) onto the ice. Karen and Michelle began serious training when she was about 8 years old. They practiced three to four hours a day, waking up at 3am to skate before school and going back to the rink right after school to skate again. Paying for their increased rink time led to financial hardship for Kwan's working class family. Her mother took on a second job and her father started working extra hours to finance the rink time and coaching fees. Eventually the family decided to sell their house, but that still wasn't enough to finance the skating. When Kwan was ten years old, her family could no longer afford a coach, but they were offered financial assistance by another member of the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club[6][7] that allowed them to train at the Ice Castle International Training Center in Lake Arrowhead, California.