A face that says it all

Will 2011 be China's year at the Miss Universe? Yue-sai Kan is determined to make the answer to that a resounding yes. Liu Wei reports.

Yesteryear It girl Yue-sai Kan was to tens of millions of Chinese women 30 years ago what Sienna Miller and Alexa Chung (both English models) are to today's 20-something Internet enthusiasts. Dubbed "the most famous woman in China" by People Magazine, Kan rose to stardom with the TV show One World, in 1986. The show took Chinese viewers, starved for information about the outside world, to the United States, Egypt, Australia and Greece, and told them stories about baseball, New York's immigrants, and the state of women's rights in Denmark.

Kan dazzled. At a time when China was just opening up, she was so in vogue.