Mao Amin ( born 1962)Zu-yan Chen, Robert Daly, and Hong Zhang, ''Chinese Through Song'' (2001)
1994
is a Chinese singer known by the " honorific title" of Dajieda ("Big Sister"), "was one of China's most famous and senior female pop stars" by "the mid-1990s."Nimrod Baranovitch, ''China's new voices: popular music, ethnicity, gender, and politics, 1978–1997'' (2003)
146
/ref> In 2001, she was one of 36 Chinese athletes and entertainers who were depicted on a series of postage stamps issued "in support of Beijing's bid for hosting the

2008 Olympic Games The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nat ...

Musical background in the mid-1980s

Mao along with fellow singer

Liu Huan Liu Huan (born August 26, 1963, in Tianjin) is a Chinese singer and songwriter. He is one of China's modern era pioneers in pop music. He combines his music career with teaching the history of Western music at the Beijing University of Interna ...

, "both household names among Chinese around the world," were "disciples" of "renowned vocal educator" Deng Zaijun.

Popularity in the late 1980s

While Nimrod Baranovitch writes that Mao became famous because of her "powerful and uninhibited" voice, All China Women's Federation contends that she "became famous after winning third place in the Yugoslavian International Musical

Eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, ac ...

with Green Leaf and the Root. It was the highest honor a Chinese pop singer had ever been given in an international competition. But Mao became even more well known by singing in the Spring Festival Gala." Moreover, her performance in 1988 for the Chinese New Year TV Celebration "made both song and singer extremely popular in Mainland China." By the late 1980s, Mao "earned two thousand yuan for a single performance as China's biggest pop star..." The ''

New Straits Times The ''New Straits Times'' is an English-language newspaper published in Malaysia. It is Malaysia's oldest newspaper still in print (though not the first), having been founded as ''The Straits Times'' on 15 July 1845. It was relaunched as the ' ...

'' described her as "China's most popular singer," who "retains a nationalistic flavour in her songs," and "China's top pop singer for the past four years" before 1990.

Legal troubles in 1989

In 1989, "Mao, China's biggest pop star, was caught lying to the ''

Beijing Evening News ''Beijing Evening News'' or ''Beijing Wanbao'' (), also known as ''Beijing Evening Post'', is a Chinese language tabloid newspaper in the People's Republic of China from Beijing. It was founded on March 15, 1958. Mao Zedong wrote the title for it ...

'' about under-the-table payments for performances in

Harbin Harbin (; mnc, , v=Halbin; ) is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital and the largest city of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population after Shenyang and largest c ...

. In the ensuing scandal, she was fined 34,000 yuan and forced to pay 15,000 yuan in back taxes."Deborah Davis, ''Urban spaces in contemporary China: the potential for autonomy and community'' (1995)
186

Transformation in 1990s

Following her legal troubles, Mao underwent a transformation towards seemingly feminist music, such as her 1994 single "Real Woman" off of her self-titled album. These mid-1990s efforts received criticism as lacking the spirit and power of her 1980s work.

Filmography

* '' Love on the Cloud'' (2014)

References