By Susan Jakes

Chinese showbiz rarely produces icons. Sure, there are the dozen or so movie actors who can carry a film, and the odd rocker who fills a stadium. But seldom does a face on China's small screen really stand out. Even singing, the national pastime and TV staple, seems reserved for an interchangeable lineup of warbling coquettes, husky crooners and jolly fellows in brass stars and epaulets belting out odes to red flags.

中国的影像工业造星乏术。尽管有若干影星占据银幕，也有少数摇滚歌手可以炒热体育场，但却鲜有电视银屏上的面孔能够真正出位。即便是在国家娱乐活动及电视晚会的歌唱环节中，也总是看见一些换汤不换药的风尘女子、沙哑的男低音和貌似愉悦的跟班，在军衔和铜制五星的簇拥下高歌红旗颂。

Which helps explain how a 21-year-old Sichuanese music student named Li Yuchun has become one of the most popular figures in China. In August, Li won a televised American Idol-like singing contest produced by Hunan province's Entertainment Channel and bearing its own inimitable name: "Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl's Voice." (Its sponsor makes yogurt.) The show drew the largest audiences in the history of Chinese television. As the competition narrowed, the media covered it like a war or the O.J. Simpson trial. By the time the finale aired, some 400 million people were tuning in.

而这也正解释了为什么一个名叫李宇春的21岁四川女生会成为中国最受欢迎的流行偶像。8月，李宇春在湖南卫视那档类似“美国偶像”的歌唱比赛中盛出，并赢得了她独一无二的称号：“蒙牛酸酸乳超级女声”(电视节目的赞助商是做酸酸乳的)。这个节目吸引到了中国电视史上最大的观众群。当比赛日趋白热化，媒体就像面对一场战争或是辛普森案那样对比赛进行了报道。在总决选中，约4亿人收看了电视直播。

The Li Yuchun phenomenon, however, goes far beyond her voice, which even the most ardent fans admit is pretty weak: her vocal range drifts between Cher territory and that place your little brother's voice went the summer before seventh grade. As a dancer, she's not much better. Hei Nan, one of the event's judges, told the Guangzhou Daily that Li was "the worst of the top six in terms of singing skills," but noted that she garnered the most audience votes.

被李宇春的狂热歌迷们追捧的歌声经不起推敲——那只是种漂移在雪儿(Cher)和你还没上初中的小弟弟之间的音色。而作为一名舞者，她也强不到哪里去。超女评委黑楠在接受《广州日报》采访时说：“她是六强中唱功最差的”，但是请注意，她依然赢得了最多的观众选票。

What Li did possess was attitude, originality and a proud androgyny that defied Chinese norms. During the tryouts—in which 150,000 contestants were winnowed to 15—Li wore loose jeans and a black button-down shirt, with no make-up and the haircut (and body) of David Bowie during his Space Oddity phase. She auditioned with In My Heart There's Only You, Never Her, an oldie made famous by Taiwan's Liu Wenzheng—a man. In the main competition she sang other songs written for male performers and called herself "a tomboy." For an audience reared on the bubble-gum, lip-gloss standards of Chinese girl pop, Li's disregard for the rule book produced an unfamiliar knee-weakening. Her fans wept openly and frantically shrieked when Li took the stage. The show ruffled feathers among Beijing's commissars. By the final episode, Li and her two remaining rivals had switched their repertoire to patriotic folk songs.

实际上，李宇春现象早已超越了她的歌声。李宇春所拥有的，是态度、创意和颠覆了中国传统审美的中性风格。在那个从15万人中选出15人的预赛阶段，李宇春身着宽松的牛仔裤与黑色带扣衬衫，素面朝天并带着大卫·鲍伊(David Bowie)在演唱《太空星尘(Space Oddity，1969年发行，译者注)》时的发型和体型登台亮相，演唱了台湾男歌星刘文正的著名老歌《我的心里只有你没有她》。海选过后，李宇春又演唱了许多为男歌手创作的歌曲并说自己“像男生”。对教条的不屑一顾引来超乎意料的反响，每当李宇春登台亮相，她的“粉丝”们总会泪洒现场或是惊声尖叫。这档节目惹恼了北京的高层。在总决选中，李宇春和她的两位竞争对手不得不将原先安排好的曲目换成民歌。

Li's victory was unusual in other ways: like American Idol, but unlike China itself, "Super Girl's Voice" is run democratically. Eight million SMS votes flooded in on the night of the finale. For a few weeks after, the mainland press debated the relevance of this format. "Only something that smashes social norms could elicit such a response," Yu Guoming, a media expert at People's University, told the Beijing News. "After all, in China the opportunities to use votes to choose are relatively few." An editorial in the China Daily wondered: "How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting the singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?" As Li prepares for a nationwide tour with the other finalists, her handlers are loath to discuss the political dimensions of the program or of Li's triumph. Hunan Entertainment Channel refused TIME's requests to interview or photograph Li. According to one of her many agents, they were worried the story would portray Li as more than just an entertainer. But she is more: Li represents unabashed individuality, and that's why she's a national icon.

李宇春的胜利在很多其他方面都显得与众不同：类似“美国偶像”——而非中国现状——“超级女声”以一个民主的方式运作。800万短信投票划过决赛当晚的夜空。此后数周，大陆媒体围绕着这种节目模式展开了争论。“只有打破常态的东西才会引起如此大的反响，”人民大学新闻学院教授喻国明在接受《新京报》采访时说，“但毕竟中国能够实际的完全用投票的方式进行选择，机会是比较少的。”《China Daily》的社论(《Svengalis scramble to decipher Super Girls' secret》，8月27日，作者周黎明，译者注)发问：“为什么一个模拟民主的比赛机制却选出了唱功最差的歌手呢？”当李宇春准备和其他“超级女声”展开全国巡演的时候，她的经纪人并不愿意在政治层面上谈论这档电视节目和李宇春的胜出。湖南卫视拒绝了《时代》周刊的采访，也不允许对李宇春进行拍照。经纪公司非常担心这篇报道会给李宇春扣上艺人以外的帽子。但是，李宇春确实拥有更多含义：她代表了张扬的个性，这就是她成为全国偶像的原因。

—With reporting by Nicole Qu/Beijing Susan Jakes

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends, Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Henry David Thoreau