Finding her voice

She was a grumpy kid stuck in an alien city when her parents first moved to China. Then she started singing Chinese folk songs, and the world changed for Annie Kathyn Lowdermilk, she tells Chen Nan.

The first time Annie Kathryn Lowdermilk performed at a Chinese TV singing competition, she almost passed out on the stage.

"I knew I was singing the wrong song, dressed in a wrong way and I even forgot to smile," she says of her 2009 effort.