The part-time pros

In the age of internet live streaming, many are using their talents to make a financial killing - and then there are those passionate about performing but happy enough to get on with the rest of their lives

You awake from a dream with a clear picture of yourself on stage, and with the sound of applause for your performance still ringing in your ears. Minutes later you stand before your bathroom mirror, and the cold reality that this was indeed a dream sets in as the person facing you says that it is not you but others who are supposed to be stars. Instead you must get ready for another day in the real world.

There was nothing dreamlike of the music and flickering lights that fired Wu Ping's imagination about becoming a performer. They came from a television screen when she was about 10 years old in her home in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, 30 years ago.