Wei Wei

One of the most annoying sounds you hear in China is people yelling "Wei! Wei!" into their mobile telephones. If they just shut up and got on with the conversation, they would save a lot of time and money. But it seems to be a necessary ritual. So, I pity anyone whose name is Wei Wei. She must think people are yelling to her all the time. Maybe they are.

One of Liuzhou's biggest exports is just such a woman. Wei Wei* is one of China's most successful solo singers. She was born in Inner Mongolia but was brought up here in Liuzhou.  Now based in Sweden, she has sold over 200 million albums, which makes her pretty huge by any standard.

She has also been China's 'musical Olympic Ambassador' for over 13 years. This means that she represented the Chinese Olympic Committee on their attempts to  win the 2008 games and has performed at most of the shows held to celebrate the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. She will no doubt be part of the 2008 opening ceremony, exposing her to an even greater audience. In anticipation of that, she has recorded the official Olympic Song in both Chinese and English.

She is in the news this week as she is the first major Chinese artist to release an album online, ahead of the more conventional CD in the stores approach.

Of course, what you want to know is, What does she sound like?"

Well, Chinese popular music just ain't my thing, so I'm disqualifying myself from deciding if she is any good or not. If you really want to know, you could try clicking here. 

You could also visit her website  (Chinese and English).

(* pronounced "Way Way")

tags: china  guangxi  liuzhou  wei  olympic  olympics  beijing  中国  广西  柳州  韦唯  北京  

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