Results tagged “americanidol”

Li Yuchun (李宇春) — the "androgynous wonder from Sichuan" who was the first winner of Super Voice Girls (an American Idol-style talent show) — recently gave a concert in Nanjing, and she performed in *gasp* a skirt! Now if you have no clue what an earth-shattering revolution Super Voice Girls represented (for the very first time, viewers were allowed to vote for their favourite singer via SMS, causing some powers-that-be to quake with fear) and...

Baidu rolled a new feature as of yesterday—a person of the month, which you can see in their logo. They say that they pick the person based on searches done in their engine, so it's a bit like Google Trends meets Time Person of the Year on a monthly basis. This month it's Xu Sanduo (许三多), a character from a popular TV series called Soldier Sortie(士兵突击), which has become one of the more popular shows...

Defying Chinese criticism and pressure, Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, on Sunday in Berlin, becoming the first German chancellor to do so, despite warnings from Beijing that it could damage economic contacts.

One of the nice features on Google Calendar is the ability to add the lunar calendar on top of the western one, which helped us verify that today, Thursday, is indeed the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar.

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year!

Now that all the fuss and excitement surrounding Robin Gibb and Air Supply has died down, what do we have to live for during the coming cold and brutal winter months in Shanghai? In addition to our beloved electric blankets and space heaters, there's going to be a little something for everyone to look forward to as we plunge into the cold.

Phillyist rejoices in the Phillies' wild card chances, mourns the injuries sustained by Eagles defensive end Jevon Kearse, and goes pirate on our asses.

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called How to Get the Guy that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing.

The week starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross.

Photo from south.com.cn.

We suppose this is what we should expect from an illegal hookup. Why illegal? Because there is no legal alternative. Believe us, we'd be the first in line to sign up for a reliable and legit satellite dish, if one existed. But it doesn't. We use Dream satellite TV out of the Philippines, only they don't know about it. It's the same service most people use here, we think. Last summer, tired of Chinese historical dramas and infomericals, we finally called one of the numbers on one of the hundreds of satellite fliers that overflowed from our mailbox, a husband and wife team showed up at our apartment, and she held on to his belt while he risked his life installing the satellite outside out our 13th floor window. We paid around RMB 1,600 -- a one-time fee, they said. They warned us that sometimes service would would go out -- the company in the Philippines, knowing that thousands (millions?) of people in China are using their service for free, will occasionally re-scramble their codes (or something like that) -- but that wouldn't be a problem, because all they need to do is get us a newly coded card to put in our box. They would do that free of charge, and the most we'd be left without satellite service would be a couple days. Two hundred bucks for lifetime satellite TV? With nothing more to pay ... ever? Life was good. Fifty-two channels (Dream 890 is the plan we appear to have) ... most of them in English. We even had a soft-core porn channel that seemed to be on an endless loop of tantric sex how-to videos and B-movies starring Kari Wuhrer (that channel has since been discontinued).

• Some Chinese activists on hunger strikes have gone missing. Wonder if it was these "activists" who helped lead the foreign press to the story.
• In the Washington Post: "The soul of Freezing Point has been extinguished. Only an empty shell remains."
• China is now home to 10 billionaires, up from three last year. Forbes lists China's 400 richest.

Following the sensational success of Super Voice Girls (Chaoji Nu Sheng or 超级女声), Hunan Province Satellite Television Station planned to organize another American Idol-style TV program called -- surprise, surprise -- Super Voice Boys (Chaoji Nan Sheng or 超级男声), the TV station announced the news to media cheerfully in early September. However, Xinhua reports (in Chinese) the plan was called off by The Central Propaganda Department and The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. (Whew.) The official line is Super Voice Girls had a lot of "negative" inside stories involved with both the judges and the candidates when it started to become popular. Rumors of blackmail swirled while contestants were labeled concubines and, of course, lesbians (not that there's anything wrong with that).

If we're lucky! The Chinese TV sensation is launching a nationwide concert tour. The Saturday concert series kicks off Oct. 1 in Sichuan's Chengdu. The tour will hit 10 cities, focusing on cities that played host to regional qualifiers for the American Idol-esque show. Was Shanghai one of those cities? Shanghaiist has no clue. Perhaps a reader can help us out? Each concert is expected to cost around RMB 1 million.

, produced and broadcast by the state-owned Hunan Province Satellite Television Station. The program's full name is Mengniu Yoghurt Super Voice Girls -- Mengniu being one of China's leading dairy product brands.

It started with the UK’s semi-successful Pop Stars, which mutated into the very successful Pop Idol, which duly crossed the Atlantic and transfixed the United States as American Idol, and now it would appear that Asia, or more importantly, China, is getting in on the act of making a television sensation out of finding a pop star. Taiwanese entertainment network ETTV is running its second series of Top Idol this summer, in which contestants battle it out for their share of a $50,000 prize fund and the opportunity to sign a contract with ETTV. Last year’s inaugural competition saw wannabes from across Asia, and indeed the US, strutting their stuff, but despite the hype, the audience at the finals in New York numbered little over 100.