CHINA / Newsmaker

Li riding crest of a wave
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-27 06:39

Li Yuchun, a music student who won China's equivalent of "American Idol," is still baffled by the change her superstar status has brought.


Chinese singer Li Yuchun attends a Christmas celebration event in Hong Kong December 24, 2005. Li won a televised singing contest called 'Super Girl's Voice 2005'. [Reuters]

The 21-year-old tomboy from Sichuan was catapulted from obscurity last August after winning "Super Girls," the hugely popular televised pop talent contest.

An audience estimated at up to 400 million people tuned in to the three-hour final, and 3.5 million voted for Li by text.

"There is a very big change from the life of a student to this," said the tall, thin Li, who is in London briefly to open celebrations for Chinese New Year.

"I still keep in touch with my friends, but my schedule is so busy that I don't get much time to myself at all," she told Reuters.

It was not as though Li, who described her main music college subject as "pop singing," intentionally used the contest as a career springboard.

"I only entered it to keep a friend of mine company," she said, speaking through an interpreter.

Never having left China, and barely her home province, before winning the contest, Li now finds her image plastered across advertising billboards and magazines everywhere.

Accusations by her critics that she has a mediocre voice with a talent to match cut no ice with her legion of fans who mob her every appearance.

Asked if she welcomed the apparent encroachment of American pop culture into China she replied that it was not something she had ever thought about.

"I have never considered questions like this. It was a contest. I love singing and I entered it," she said with a shrug.

And what of her plans for the future?

"I have no long term plans. But I have already released a single and this year I will release my first album," Li said. "My record company hired producers to write songs for me this time, but in future I hope to write my own songs."

If her millions of fans cannot wait for her album to appear they will soon have a token to tide them over when the China National Philatelic Corporation this week issues a postage stamp bearing her image -- a first for a Chinese mainland pop star.

"I am very happy and delighted," Li said. "It will make me feel very close to my fans."