Mongolian Cow Sour Sour Yogurt Super Girl Contest

By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY

CHANGSHA, China (May 27) -- The name may not roll off the tongue quite like American Idol does, but that hasn't kept the Mongolian Cow Sour Sour Yogurt Super Girl contest from sweeping China. Like Idol, which named its winner Wednesday night, China's Super Girl gives aspiring singing stars a shot at televised fame and fortune. And amid an Idol-like mania, young women all over China have lunged at the opportunity. (But only women: There's no national Super Boy show.)

Though other amateur talent programs have aired on local television stations, Super Girl is China's first nationally televised show of its kind, according to Liao Ke, its co-creator and a program designer for state-owned Hunan province satellite television.

In a country where televised fare still features military officers belting out patriotic anthems, viewers have found Super Girl irresistible. "This is the most popular entertainment program we've ever done," Liao says.

Through May 6, an estimated 30% of all television sets in the country — or 210 million viewers — had tuned in to an episode, The show drew its largest audience to date during the regional finale in the southern city of Guangzhou; more than 22 million watched. (Super Girl can be seen in the USA on the Dish Network satellite television system.)

China has a reputation for copying everything from North Face jackets to the latest Hollywood DVDs. But Liao says he was only dimly aware of American Idol's British predecessor, Pop Idol, when he developed Super Girl.

He says the program grew out of China's rising standard of living, which has spawned more "colorful" entertainment options than in the days when art and entertainment were required to serve the country's Communist revolution. "Everybody wants to express themselves, and Hunan TV just became the platform," he says. "It's like our logo says: 'If you want to sing, sing.' "

It's not just self-expression that motivates contestants. Last year's winner took homemore than $6,000 — big money in a country with an average annual income of $1,100. [ The U.S. equivalent would be about $ 175,000 ]Unlike the American Idol winner, the Chinese champion isn't guaranteed a recording contract. But she can go on to professional success. Zhang Hanyun, 16, who finished third in last year's national showdown, is now a household name. She appears in print and TV ads for Mongolian Cow drinkable yogurt, one of China's best-known brands. She expects to release an album in July. There's also talk of a television series in which she'll appear as herself.

"I feel really lucky," she says.

This is a China far removed from the political ferment that led to the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. Today, China is relentlessly commercial, individualistic and apolitical.

"If such a program happened five or 10 years ago, I don't think it would have been so influential. I don't think the ordinary people would have opened themselves up to participate," says An Youqi, 21, last year's Changsha winner. "People were pretty shy and pretty conservative."

Super Girl is surprisingly participatory. This remains a country where people can't elect their leaders. But they can vote for their favorite singers.