Mao A’min

b. 1963, Shanghai

Pop singer

Mao A’min is monumental in Chinese pop music. She had a talent for singing when young. She began her singing career with the Shanghai Chemical Workers Performance Troupe and from 1985 with the Front Singing and Dancing Ensemble of the People’s Liberation Army, Nanjing Military Area Command. In June of that year, she won the first prize at the First Young Vocalist Contest of Jiangsu province. A month later, she received a third place at the National Young Vocalist Contest. Her unique style of sub-soprano became her hallmark.

In 1987, at the International Music Festival in Belgrade, Mao won the third place with ‘A Leaf’s Feelings Towards the Root’ (Lüye dui gen de qingyi).

This achievement secured her a stardom enjoyed by few other pop singers. In 1989, Mao transferred to the Singing and Dancing Ensemble of the PLA General Political Department. The theme song of the early Chinese TV series Yearnings (Kewang) (see Yearnings, Aspirations) brought her singing career to new heights. She was selected as one of the top ten film, TV and singing stars in 1992. Her albums include Pursuing (Zhuixun), A Stray Girl (Milu de nühai) and The Experienced (Guolai ren). For personal reasons, Mao lived in Britain, the United States and Australia between 1995 and 1998. Her bond with her Chinese audience, however, has pulled her home, and she staged her official comeback on 27 February 2002 in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Further reading

Baranovitch, Nimrod (2003). China’s New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics, 1978–1997. Berkeley: University of California Press, 146–8.

HU MINGRONG