Chloé Zhao - Wikipedia

Chloé Zhao was born Zhao Ting (赵婷; Zhào Tíng) on 31 March 1982, in Beijing, China. Her father, Zhao Yuji (赵玉吉; Zhào Yùjí), was a successful executive at Shougang Group, one of the country's largest state-owned steel companies. After amassing significant personal wealth, he moved on to real-estate development and equity investment.[9]

Song Dandan, her stepmother, is a well-known Chinese actress who was in various sitcoms, mostly known for her appearance in “Home with the Kids”. According to her own description, Zhao was a curious child who was drawn to Western pop culture,  especially in the realm of film and music. Zhao was uninterested in school in Beijing, as she focused on art and her own pursuits instead.[10]

As a teenager, Zhao described herself as a "rebellious and lazy student" who was more interested in drawing manga-style comics and writing fan fiction than in academics. She was strongly influenced by Western pop culture and the films of Wong Kar-wai, particularly Happy Together. During this period of her life, her parents divorced. Her father remarried Song Dandan, a well-known Chinese actress.

Although she was still learning English at the time, her parents sent her to Brighton College in 1998 at the age of 15.[11][12] Zhao later moved to Los Angeles by herself in 2000, living in a Koreatown apartment and attending Los Angeles High School.[13] Afterwards, she attended Mount Holyoke College, where she majored in politics and minored in film studies, graduating in 2005.[14][15][16][17]

Post-graduation, while bartending and working odd jobs, Zhao realized she enjoyed meeting people and hearing about their lives, giving her the push to attend film school.[18] A Vulture article reported that "Four years was enough to turn her off of politics...she found herself drawn more to people than to policy".[19] In 2010, she followed up on her undergraduate film minor by joining the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Graduate Film Program.[20] at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[21] While attending Tisch, Zhao studied under director Spike Lee.[18] She told USA Today that she appreciated Lee not sugarcoating anything, saying that "he will just tell you as it is", something that she claims she needed.[18]