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Sun, Sep 12, 2010
The New Paper
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Her raunchy videos attract unwelcome attention from Chinese govt

ONCE she was a dishwasher in a London restaurant earning £4 (S$8) an hour.

Now, Ayi Jihu, 25, is such a sensation back home in China that she cannot walk on the streets without being mobbed.

Dubbed "The Chinese Madonna", her raunchy and provocative R&B pop videos have attracted unwelcome attention from China's hardline communist government.

On Wednesday, she made a surprise visit to her parent's takeaway restaurant to present them with a gold disc marking 100 million downloads in China, The Telegraph reported.

Ayi, who has performed at gigs to over 1.6 million people, promised British fans will get an eyeful of her "red-hot" performances when she releases her assault on the Western pop charts later this month.

Recalling her days as a dishwasher, she said: "Washing up was such hard work. I had to work every weekend to get some pocket money. Boxes of dirty washing kept coming in and it seemed to go on forever.

"I was very glad when I was old enough to be a waitress.

"I used to sing and dance for the customers. It's all I ever wanted to do and got me out of the kitchen for a short while.

"This is where it all started. Now I just want to eat the food not do the washing up."

She admitted that Western audiences don't know much about her, but said that she is "pretty big" in China because not many performers are like her - sexy, provocative and raunchy.

She said: "There're a lot of things the Chinese government don't like about it but I haven't had a problem yet - but I know it will come sooner or later.

"People in my family's home town in China get very excited if they see me. I'm quite careful not to go out alone as I can't really walk the streets."

Her big break came after she featured as an extra in a music video of rapper Fugitive, after an offer from a friend at Middlesex University, Daily Mail reported.

The record company was so impressed by her performance that they invited her back and made her the centre-piece of the video.

She was signed up by London-based record company Shlep Records and flown to China in 2007 where she began wowing audiences in casinos in Macau.

Ayi grew up in a poverty stricken village called Leibo, in Sichuan province, the Telegraph reported.

Moved to England at 13

When she was 13, her parents moved to England in search of a better life and education for their two children. They settled in Cambridge.

Her mother Cindy Wu, 46, and stepfather Samuel Mak, 70, bought the Ugly Duckling restaurant and recruited Ayi to wash dishes and later be a waitress.

After passing her GCSEs and A levels with flying colours, she worked as a waitress to fund her accounting and economics degree at Middlesex University.

Ayi first made it big on China's underground circuit, attracting the attention of music-lovers as well as thousands of love-struck men.

A spokesman for Schlep Records paid tribute to Ayi's rise from "humble beginnings" to becoming a "phenomenal" success story

Her single Sad Sweet Dreamer will be released in UK on Sept 27.

 

This article was first published in The New Paper.

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